“Oh, hush—but no, you must not!” she broke in, her face all crimson, her lips trembling.
“But yes, I must,” he answered quickly. “You find peace here, but it is the peace of inaction. It dulls the brain, and life winds in upon itself wearily at the last. But out there is light and fire and action and the quick-beating pulse, and the joy of power wisely used, even to the end. You come of a great people, you were born to great things; your child has rights accorded now by every Court of Europe. You must act for him. For your child’s sake, for my sake come out into the great field of life with me—as my wife, Guida.”
She turned to him frankly, she looked at him steadfastly, the colour in her face came and went, but her eyes glowed with feeling.
“After all that has happened?” she asked in a low tone.
“It could only be because of all that has happened,” he answered.
“No, no, you do not understand,” she said quickly, a great pain in her voice. “I have suffered so, these many, many years! I shall never be light-hearted again. And I am not fitted for such high estate. Do you not see what you ask of me—to go from this cottage to a palace?”
“I love you too well to ask you to do what you could not. You must trust me,” he answered, “you must give your life its chance, you must—”
“But listen to me,” she interjected with breaking tones; “I know as surely as I know—as I know the face of my child, that the youth in me is dead. My summer came—and went—long ago. No, no, you do not understand—I would not make you unhappy. I must live only to make my child happy. That love has not been marred.”
“And I must be judge of what is for my own happiness. And for yours—if I thought my love would make you unhappy for even one day, I should not offer it. I am your lover, but I am also your friend. Had it not been for you I might have slept in a drunkard’s grave in Jersey. Were it not for you, my bones would now be lying in the Vendee. I left my peasants, I denied myself death with them to serve you. The old cause is gone. You and your child are now my only cause—”
“You make it so hard for me,” she broke in. “Think of the shadows from the past always in my eyes, always in my heart—you cannot wear the convict’s chain without the lagging footstep afterwards.”