“Listen, Eva,” Ernest went on, gathering himself together, and speaking sternly enough now, and with a strange suppressed energy that frightened her. “How you came to do what you have done you best know.”
“It is done; do not let us speak of it. I was not altogether to blame,” she broke in.
“I was not going to speak of it. But I was going to say this, now while I have the chance, because time is short, and I think it right that you should know the truth. I was going to tell you just that for what you have done I freely forgive you.”
“O Ernest!”
“It is,” he went on, not heeding her, “a question that you can settle with your conscience and your God. But I wish to tell you what it is that you have done. You have wrecked my life, and made it an unhappy thing; you have taken that from me which I can never have to give again; you have embittered my mind, and driven me to sins of which I should not otherwise have dreamed. I loved you, and you gave me proofs which I could not doubt that I had won your love. You let me love you, and then when the hour of trial came you deserted and morally destroyed me, and the great and holy affection that should have been the blessing of my life has become its curse.”
Eva covered her face with her hands and sat silent.
“You do not answer me, Eva,” he said presently, with a little laugh. “Perhaps you find what I have to say difficult to answer, or perhaps you think I am taking a liberty.”
“You are very hard,” she said, in a low voice.
“Had you not better wait till I have done before you call me hard? If I wished to be hard, I should tell you that I no longer cared for you, that my prevailing feeling towards you was one of contempt. It would, perhaps, mortify you to think that I had shaken off such heavy chains. But it is not the truth, Eva. I love you now, as I always have loved you, as I always shall love you. I hope for nothing, I ask for nothing; in this business it has always been my part to give, not to receive. I despise myself for it, but so it is.”
She laid her hand upon his shoulder. “Spare me, Ernest,” she whispered.