“Yass, ’tis so. ’Tis ri-ght!”
“No, Josephine. I know you feel as if it were; but you don’t think so. No, you don’t; I know you better in this matter than you know yourself, and you don’t think it’s right. You know justice belongs to the State, and that when you talk to yourself about what you owe to justice, it means something else that you’re too sweet and good to give the right name to, and still want it. You don’t want it; you don’t want revenge, and here’s the proof; for, Josephine, you know, and I know, that if I—even without speaking—with no more than one look of the eye—should offer to buy your favor at that price, even ever so lawfully, you’d thank me for one minute, and then loathe me to the end of your days.”
Zoséphine’s face had lost its hardness. It was drawn with distress. With a gesture of repulsion and pain she exclaimed:
“I di’n’ mean—I di’n’ mean—Ah!”
“What? private revenge? No, of course you didn’t! But what else would it be? O Josephine! don’t I know you didn’t mean it? Didn’t I tell you so? But I want you to go farther. I want you to put away forever the feeling. I want to move and stand between you and it, and say—whatever it costs me to say it—‘God forbid!’ I do say it; I say it now. I can’t say more; I can’t say less; and somehow,—I don’t know how—wherever you learned it—I’ve learned it from you.”
Zoséphine opened her lips to refuse; but they closed and tightened upon each other, her narrowed eyes sent short flashes out upon his, and her breath came and went long and deep without sound. But at his last words she saw—the strangest thing—to be where she saw it—a tear—tears—standing in his eyes; saw them a moment, and then could see them no more for her own. Her lips relaxed, her form drooped, she lifted her face to reply, but her mouth twitched; she could not speak.
“I’m not so foolish as I look,” he said, trying to smile away his emotion. “If the State chooses to hunt him out and put him to trial and punishment, I don’t say I’d stand in the way; that’s the State’s business; that’s for the public safety. But it’s too late—you and Bonnyventure have made it too late—for me to help any one, least of all the one I love, to be revenged.” He saw his words were prevailing and followed them up. “Oh! you don’t need it any more than you really want it, Josephine. You mustn’t ever look toward it again. I throw myself and my love across the path. Don’t walk over us. Take my hand; give me yours; come another way; and if you’ll let such a poor excuse for a teacher and guide help you, I’ll help you all I can, to learn to say ‘forgive us our trespasses.’ You can begin, now, by forgiving me. I may have thrown away my last chance with you, but I can’t help it; it’s my love that spoke. And if I have spoiled all and if I’ve got to pay for the tears you’re shedding with the greatest disappointment of my life, still I’ve had the glory and the sanctification of loving you. If I must say, I can say,
‘’Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.’
Must I? Are you going to make me say that?”
Zoséphine, still in tears, silently and with drooping head pushed her way across the stile and left him standing on the other side. He sent one pleading word after her: