"I knew not what love meant."
"You chose a simple girl for your wife, and tired of her; pretended friendship for me, and under that mask of friendship nursed your profligate dreams; and now you dare insult me with your unholy love."
"I should not have so dared, madam—indeed, I believe I might have conquered my passion—so far as to remain for ever silent—if—if your own words——"
"My words? When have I ever spoken a word that could warrant such an affront?"
"When I advised you to accept Dunkeld—you refused with such impassioned vehemence—you confessed you had a reason."
"And you thought 'twas because I loved another woman's husband—that 'twas your saintly self I cared for? No, sir, 'twas because I swore to Kilrush on his death-bed that I would never belong to another, that our union, of but one tragical hour, should be all I would ever know of wedlock. I belong to him now as I belonged to him then. I love his memory now as I loved him then. That, sir, was my reason. Are you not ashamed of your fatuous self-esteem, which took it for a confession of love? Love for you, the Methodist preacher, the man of God!"
"Yes, I am ashamed—I am drinking the cup of shame."
"You have tricked me, sir. You have deceived me very cruelly. I trusted you—I thought that I had a friend—one man in the world who treated me like a woman of sense—who dared to disapprove, where all the world basely flattered me. And you are the worst of all—the snake in the grass. But do you think I fear you? I had a better man than you at my feet—the man I loved—my first love—a man with sovereign power over the hearts of women. Do you think I fear you? No, sir, 'twas then the tempter tried me. If there is a devil who assails women, I met him then, and vanquished him."
She trembled from head to foot in the excess of her feeling. She was leaning against the balustrade in one of the semicircular recesses on the bridge. He was sitting at the furthest end of the stone bench, his elbows on his knees, his face hidden.
"You have made me hate myself," he said. "'Tis useless to ask you to forgive me; but you can forget that so base a worm crawls upon this earth. That will cost you but a slight effort."