"How can I take hope from any one?" she answered; "I who have no hope——"
She broke off, and he took her hand and forced her to look at him.
"Oh, Nora!" he cried despairingly. "You are so young, and you speak as though your heart were broken!"
"I do not know whether it is broken-hearted to feel nothing," she said. "If so, then I am broken-hearted."
"Nora, I believe you love your husband in spite of all you say. You must go back to him. Where there is love there must be forgiveness. You will forgive each other. You will put aside misunderstandings and foolish prejudices, and start afresh."
He spoke with a painful enthusiasm like that of a man who is willing to trample on his own happiness; but Nora shook her head.
"No one understands how impossible it is," she said. "If there were nothing else to separate us, there would be the bitterness and hatred between our countries. It sounds terrible—absurd; but that is the truth. It was that hatred which poisoned our life together, and if I could go back it would poison our whole future. Oh——" she made a little passionate gesture of protest. "Why are we so mean and petty? Why cannot we watch the rise of another nation without hatred and jealousy? Why cannot we be generous and watch with sympathy and hope her progress along the path which we have trodden? Why cannot we go forward shoulder to shoulder with her, learning and teaching, fearing no one? If we are worthy of our great place in the world, we shall keep it, no matter how strong others may grow; if we are unworthy, nothing will save us, from downfall—not all our ships and wealth. It seems so obvious, and yet——" Her momentary outburst died down to the old listlessness. "I talk like that because I have suffered it so in my life," she said; "but it is all talk. At the bottom, the antagonism is still there. Nothing will ever bridge it over." She held out her hand with a wan smile. "Good-bye, Robert."
"Good-bye; and God bless you, dear!"
He watched her move slowly homewards. He suffered intensely because he knew that her pain was greater than his. He knew that the antagonism she had spoken of surrounded her whole life, and that she stood alone, without husband, without people, and without country.
CHAPTER III