“Well, have you finished?” she demanded, as I paused.
“Not quite,” I answered, “for now I must ask you to let me take you to your home. Tomorrow morning you will feel differently, you will see all things by a different light. You will thank me then for what you now call an outrage. Think of your friends, your family. No matter what anguish you may be suffering, no matter to what desperate straits your affairs may be arrived, you have no right to attempt your life. Besides, you say you are young. Therefore you have the future before you; you have hope. I am older than you, and wiser. Be advised and guided by me. Come, let me take you to your home.”
“Home!” she repeated bitterly. “Home, friends, family! Ha-ha-ha!” She laughed; but her laughter was dry and sardonic, horrid to hear. “What you say would be cruel, sir, if it were not so highly humorous. You speak and act in ignorance. You are very far from comprehending the situation. I have no home. I have no family, no friends, and, worst of all, no money. There is not a roof in this city—no, nor in the whole world, for that matter—under which I can seek a welcome; not a friend, acquaintance, relation, not a human being, in short, to miss me, or even to enquire after me, if I disappear. Except, indeed, enemies; except those who would wish to find me for my further hurt: of them there are plenty. Now will you let me go? I am in extreme misery, sir. There is no help for me, no hope. My life is a wreck, a horror. I can't bear it, I can't endure it any longer. Let me go. If you understood the circumstances, you would not detain me. If you knew what I am, what I have done, and what I should have to look forward to if I lived; if you knew what it is to reach that pass where life means nothing for you but fire in the heart: you would not refuse to let me go. You could condemn me to no agony, sir, worse than to have to live. To live is to remember; and so long as I remember I shall be in torment. Even to sleep brings me no relief, for when I sleep I dream. Oh, for mercy's sake, let me go! Go yourself. Go away, and leave me here. You will not repent it. You may always recall it as an act of kindness. I believe you mean to be kind. Be really kind, and do not interfere with me longer.”
She had begun to speak with a recklessness and a savage irony that were shocking and repulsive; but in the end she spoke with a pathos and a passion that were irresistible. I was stirred to the bottom of my heart.
“I wish, dear lady,” I said, “I wish you could know how deeply and sincerely I feel for you, how genuine and earnest my desire is to help you. Pray, pray give me at least a chance to do so. Look; I live in one of those houses, above there, on the terrace—where you see the lights. Come with me to my house. You say you have no roof under which you can seek a welcome: I will promise you a welcome there. You say you are friendless: let me be your friend. Come with me to my house. I believe—nay, I am sure—I shall be able in some way to help you. Anyhow, give me a chance to try. I am an old man, a physician. Come with me, and let us talk together. Between us we shall discover some better solution of your difficulties than the drastic one that you are looking to. But I will make a bargain with you. Come with me to my house, and remain there for one hour. If, at the expiration of that hour, I shall not have persuaded you to think better of your present purpose—if then you are still of your present mind—I will promise to let you depart unattended, without further hindrance, to go wherever and to do whatever you see fit. No harm can come to you from accompanying me to my house—no harm by any hazard, but possibly much good. Try it. Try me. Trust me. Come. Within an hour, if you still wish it, you may go your way alone. I give you my word of honour. Will you come?”
“You leave me no free choice, sir. It will be my only means of deliverance from you. I run a great risk, a great peril, greater than you can think, in doing so. But it is agreed that at the end of one hour I shall be my own mistress again? After that—hands off?”
“At the end of one hour you may go or stay, according to your own pleasure.”
“Very well; I am ready.”