“I have not requested this interview to upbraid you,” he continued, “but merely to learn your intentions. It may save you a great deal of surmising for me to state to you that I am acquainted with the fact that you care more for another than you do for me, and God knows that I am sorry that you have learned it too late.”
She started to her feet, but he gently reseated her.
“Be quiet,” he said in a firm voice. “I have no desire to intimidate you, or to make you feel unhappy. I only wish to ask you if the life we are living is to continue?”
His hazel eyes seemed to pierce her very soul. She did not speak, and he continued:
“It has become a burden to me, and rather than that it should continue I would prefer death.”
She stole a glance at his face. The keen, penetrating 134 look in his eyes had given place to one of extreme sadness, and almost any heart would have been moved to remorse, but between her face and his own there came another whose beauty blotted out every other object, and made her forget for the time that she was a wife, and forget, too, the vast importance of the answer she should make.
“I am willing, Irene, to forgive, and as far as in my power lies, to forget, and take you back to my heart, if you can say that you come with a determination to live for your own and my happiness, but never must that bold villain who holds such an influence over you cross my threshold. Will you consent?”
Again the handsome face arose before her, sealing her lips to that which should in justice, have been said.
“Irene, I warn you now. Remember what you are doing. I am sorry for you, but the die is cast, and there is but one thing in all the world to do, and thereby protect your honor; do you know what it is?”
“I suppose it is to spend my days with a man who has not one thought in common with my own; to live with a man I never can love, and who does not love me.”