"You—never could love me, mind and heart and body? No?"
"No."
"You could not endure me beside you, to—to live—with me near you?"
"'Twould mean only pain, Joanna."
"Then go!" cried she. "I am not so base-souled to weep and wheedle, to scheme and pray for thing that can never be truly mine, or to keep you here in hated bondage—go! The boat lieth yonder; take her and what you will—only—get you gone!"
Now at this I rose and would have taken her hands but she snatched them behind her, and now I wondered at her deathly pallor,—her very lips were pale and set.
"Joanna," I stammered, "do you mean—am I—"
"Go!"
"Nay, first hear me say that wheresoever I go needs must I—"
"Respect me!" cried she with a strange, wild laugh. "Oh, begone!"