“That you cannot understand, can you?” she asked, and her hands trembled in his. “You cannot understand that such terrible doubts can fill a woman’s heart? You cannot understand that at times I don’t know what I feel, nor what I think, nor what I would do. Do you see, there is something in me, something that is incomplete. I am always in doubt. I am always searching for something, and never feel certain of anything. I liked him. Forgive me for telling you now. I liked him so very much, he was so good, and he would have sacrificed his life for me. And there came a moment when I knew no longer whether I liked him or not, when I even thought I cared for some one else, whilst all the time I cared for none but him. And now I know it—now that it is too late, and now that I have perhaps made him unhappy.”
“Do you know that you have made him unhappy, Eline?” [[295]]
“No. I do not know, but I suspect it. At the Hague I did hear something about his having got the better of his grief, but I could never believe it. Now that it is too late I know all, and it is only now that I know how fond he was of me. Even if I were to hear that he were married, I could not believe that he had quite forgotten me. It cannot be! He must think of me as I often think of him.”
“Do you still care for him?” he asked in a dull voice.
“Not as I have cared for him, not now, Lawrence. I believe just now it is only pity I feel for him, but I often think of him. Here is his portrait.”
She opened the locket, and showed him Otto’s likeness. Without saying a word he gazed at it.
“Do you always carry this about with you?” he softly asked.
“Yes,” she whispered, almost inaudibly, “always. To me this is sacred, and therefore, Lawrence, therefore it can never be. The thought of him would always rise up between us. With you I could be happy if that memory did not always haunt me. But for me to be happy whilst I continually remembered that his life was so wretched—oh! it would be impossible.”
He did not answer, and she began to sob violently. She sank down on the ground, and laid her head on his knee.
“Oh, forgive me, Lawrence, forgive me. I never thought that you could care for me. I was so ill, I was always coughing, I felt myself so weak. I thought that I had grown out of it, that I should even have repelled a man. Had I not thought thus I should never have allowed you to see that I cared for you. At first you spoke as if we were brother and sister. Why did you not continue to speak thus? As it is, now I have been compelled to cause you pain; I could not help it. I should have been wicked if I could have become your wife without a feeling of remorse.”