“When my husband withdraws his love and gives it to another, what else he has given me is worthless in my eyes. And as to stories—I go by your own conduct. Have I had a kind word from you since you returned? Have we lived as husband and wife? Have I not been dragged about with a woman whose shameful past made her an unfit companion for me in any case?”
“Be silent,” he said, with low concentrated fury.
“I cannot be silent. I have always obeyed you and my one prayer is to do so again and forever. Oh, my husband, my dear, dear husband; we were happy once. I implore and entreat you let us be happy again. Put her away and come back to me. She is ruining you in the eyes of men. On all sides are stories of her worthlessness and your misplaced belief in her. That is the cause of all the coldness that wounds you. I love you. Come back to me and forget this most miserable thing and let us be happy again.”
She spread her hands out in the quick gesture he knew so well. The tears were thick in her eyes but did not overflow. Even then her reserve stood in her way. Even to herself she seemed strained and cold. She wanted to kneel before him and cling about him and tell him all her love, but could not. Oh, for a word, a sign of love from him and then the frost would break up and dissolve in a rain of passionate tears and kisses.
He turned to the window for a minute and stood looking out on the dim lights as if taking a moment to think, and then turned back again.
“I won’t insult the woman you speak of by defending her from your vile attacks. She is utterly beyond your malice; the truest, bravest heart in the world. If you wanted love from me you should have met my friend as your friend and taken her to your heart as I have. She was willing to love you, as she wrote you more than once, but you would have nothing but your own poor jealousy. Well, have it! Keep it! I tell you here and now that you have so acted that one hair of her head is more to me than all you have and are, and that though most unfortunately I must live with you for her sake, it shall never again be as husband and wife. And if you injure her in word or deed it shall be at your peril.”
She got up from her chair steadied by these dreadful words and stood holding by it for a moment. Then she spoke in a choking whisper.
“What must the passion be that can make a man like you speak so to the wife he has loved and trusted? I have no more to say. God judge between us.”
She went quietly to the door that led to her bedroom and passed through and he heard the key turn. If even then she had faltered and shown some sign of weakness he might have—no, not relented, for Emma possessed him too strongly for that!—but have thought of her more tenderly. But her reserve stood her in ill stead, and moreover he knew he was in the wrong, and he who has done the wrong never pardons. He would have left the house forever then but for the injury to Emma’s reputation at that crisis.
He sat down by the table and buried his face in his arm and thought of Emma and yearned for her and for the comfort she only could give him. Indeed, his love for her, misplaced, guilty, is none the less one of the rememberable passions of the world, incalculable to himself and in its results.