“Then what is to be your life?”
“What you see it now. I do not wish to change it for any other. I have tried the world and its rewards. There is nothing in them.”
Her tone of absolute, unexpectant decision maddened him.
“My God, Bettina!” he exclaimed, too excited to notice that the name had escaped him. “Are you in earnest? Can you mean it? I wish I could believe that you did not. But there is a deadly reality about you now which makes me fear that you will keep your word. That you should spend your life in this isolation, that you—you—”
He broke off, as if words failed him.
“What better can I do?” she said. “You must not think of me as idle and useless. I am going to try not to be that. I have tried a little. Ask the rector. And I am going to try more. There is but one thing that I deeply desire, and that is to be a better woman than I have been in the past. Oh, I will try hard—I will, indeed I will—to do a little good in the future, to make up for all the harm I have done!”
She ceased, her voice failing her, and as she looked at the man standing near her she saw that he was scarcely listening. Some intense preoccupation made him take in but vaguely what she was saying. She saw that he was deeply moved in some way, and the consciousness that this was so gave her a sense of alarm. She felt her own will weakening, and she knew that somehow she must get this parting over, if her strength were to suffice for it.
“Good-bye,” she said, holding out her hand.
“Don’t be too sorry for me. You have lightened my heart inexpressibly by what you have told me. Now that I can feel that you know all—that, wrong and wicked as I was, I was not so false as it seemed—I can bear the future with courage. I am sure of it. I want to say good-bye now, because I prefer not to see you again. You would only try to shake me in a determination that is not to be shaken. Don’t trouble about me—please don’t,” she added. “I have health and youth, and these will suffice me for what I have to do.”