“Mildred, you know that I am engaged.”
The lips moved, but no sound issued from them. Again she tried.
“I know.”
“Then why do you tempt me? I am only a man, and weak as water in your presence. Do not make me dishonourable to myself and her.”
“I love you as well as she. There—take the shameful truth.”
“Yes, but—forgive me if I pain you, for I must, I must. I love her.”
The beautiful face hid itself in the ungloved hands. No answer came, only the great diamond sparkled and blazed in the soft light like a hard and cruel eye.
“Do not, Mildred, for pity’s sake, involve us all in shame and ruin, but let us part now. If I could have foreseen how this would end! But I have been a blind and selfish fool. I have been to blame.”
She was quite calm now, and spoke in her usual singularly clear voice.
“Arthur dear, I do not blame you. Loving her, how was it likely that you should think of love from me? I only blame myself. I have loved you, God help me, ever since we met—loved you with a despairing, desperate love such as I hope that you may never know. Was I to allow your phantom Angela to snatch the cup from my lips without a struggle, the only happy cup I ever knew? For, Arthur, at the best of times, I have not been a happy woman; I have always wanted love, and it has not come to me. Perhaps I should be, but I am not—a high ideal being. I am as Nature made me, Arthur, a poor creature, unable to stand alone against such a current as has lately swept me with it. But you are quite right, you must leave me, we must separate, you must go; but oh God! when I think of the future, the hard, loveless future——”