“I evidently expected too much, but if you had told me I would have believed you had everybody testified your guilt,” she said. “Can’t you understand that love without confidence is a worthless thing—and that had you trusted me I would have borne any suspicion or obloquy with you?”
Her voice broke, but there was once more a faintly scornful ring in it when after a few moments’ silence she spoke again. “But you were afraid—afraid to trust me! Oh, it is almost unendurable!”
Tony stood still looking at her, with his heart throbbing painfully and vague wonder in his eyes. Then he moved forward with swift impulsiveness as though he would have flung himself upon his knees beside her chair, but she checked him with a gesture. Still, he stooped and laid a quivering hand upon her shoulder.
“I might have known,” he said. “If I had had the courage you would have saved me from everything, but is it too late now? I did it because I loved you, Violet—and you will give me the chance to redeem myself. You can’t destroy my last hope by casting me off?”
The girl looked up at him wearily. “A little more restraint, Tony. What has been done can never be undone—and I want to face the position quietly. Last night I struggled with the horror and bitterness of it, and one needs calmness now. We can never reopen the subject again.”
Tony moved away from her, and once more leaned upon the table. His susceptibilities were curiously dulled, but still her coldness stung him like the lash of a whip, for he could see the contempt beneath it and could more easily have borne scathing reproaches.
“Well,” he said very slowly, “nothing can happen to me that I have not deserved. I make no defence.”
He saw the little gleam in the girl’s eyes, and there was something in her face which suggested faint approbation.
“I promised to marry you—and that carries an obligation, but you destroyed the love I had for you,” she said.
“It would be a very hard thing, but I can give you that promise back. I haven’t fallen quite so far that I would take you when you have only contempt for me. I have done wrong, but there may be a faint chance left me, in spite of my worthlessness. Is it quite out of the question that I should redeem the past?”