“It is a terrible ordeal for me,” said he at last, in a slow, measured tone, “to talk with you. You seem to me like one who is mad; but it is the madness of utter ignorance. You do not know. Oh, how you tempt me to tell you all! But I can not, I can not. My lips are sealed as yet. But I will say no more on that. I will ask you one question only. It is this: Can you not see with your own eyes that this man is nothing more than a mere adventurer?”
“An adventurer!” repeated Edith, indignantly. “It ill becomes one like you to use such a word as that. For what are you yourself? Lieutenant Dudleigh is a gentleman; and though I have only known him for a short time, I am happy in calling him my friend. I will tolerate no abuse of him. Why do you not say this to his face? If he is what you say, why do you allow him to come here? An adventurer? Why, that is the very name I apply in all my thoughts to you!”
A look of anguish came over the face of Wiggins. He trembled violently, but with an effort mastered his feelings. Evidently what he said was true, and to him it was a severe ordeal to carry on a conversation with Edith. Her scorn, her anger, and her hate all flamed forth so vehemently that it was hard to endure.
“If you could only refrain from these bitter insults!” said he, in a mournful voice. “If you could only put a check upon yourself when you talk with me! I wish to speak calmly, but you hurl taunts at me that inflict exquisite pain. The remembrance of them will one day give no less anguish to you, believe me—oh, believe me! Spare me these taunts and insults, I entreat you, for the sake of both of us!”
“Both of us?” repeated Edith, without being in the slightest degree affected by the words of Wiggins. “Both of us? You seem to me to be including yourself and me in the same class, as though there could be any thing in common between me and one like you. That is impossible. Our interests are forever separate.”
“You do not know,” said Wiggins, with a great effort to be calm. “This man—this Lieutenant Dudleigh, as he calls himself—is an enemy to both of us.”
“You use that expression with strange pertinacity. I must tell you again that there can not possibly be any thing in common between you and me. For my part, I consider you as my natural enemy. You are my jailer. I am your prisoner. That is all. I am at war with you. I would give half of my possessions to escape from your hands, and the other half to punish you for what you have done. I live in the hope of some day meting out to you the punishment which your crimes deserve. If any one is an enemy of yours, that one thing is a sufficient recommendation to make him a friend of mine.”
At these words Wiggins seemed to endure a keener anguish, and his face bore upon it the same pallid horror which she had seen there before upon a similar provocation. He stared at her for a few moments, and then bowing down, he leaned his head upon his hand and looked at the floor in silence. At last, he raised his head and looked at her with a calm face.
“Is there no possible way,” said he, “in which I can speak to you without receiving wounds that sting like the fangs of a serpent? Be patient with me. If I offend, try to be a little forbearing just now, for the sake of yourself, if for nothing else. See, I am humbling myself. I ask your forbearance. I wish to speak for your own good. For, as it is, you are doing you know not what. You are ruining yourself; you are blighting and blasting your own future; you are risking your reputation; you are exposing the family name to the sneers of the world, once again. Think of your frantic adventure at the gates with that—that Mowbray!”
Now if Wiggins had wished to mollify Edith, or to persuade her to fall in with his own wishes, he was certainly most unfortunate in his way of going about it; and especially in such an allusion as this. For no sooner did he mention the name of Mowbray than Edith was roused to a fresh excitement.