Then he briefly related all the miserable commonplace story. He glossed over nothing, palliated nothing; bearing hardly now on his wife, and again on himself, but striving to show throughout how opposed to true marriage was this marriage, how far removed from a perfect union was this union. Pocahontas listened with intense, strained interest, following every word, sometimes almost anticipating them. Her heart ached for him—ached wearily. Life had been so hard upon him; he had suffered so. With a woman's involuntary hardness to woman, she raised the blame from Thorne's shoulders and heaped it upon those of his wife. Her love and her sympathy became his advocates and pleaded for him at the bar of her judgment. Her heart yearned over him with infinite compassion.
If Thorne had kept silence, and left the matter there, and waited until she should have adapted herself to the new conditions, should have assimilated the new influences, which crowded thick upon her, it would have been better. But he could not keep silent—he had no patience to wait. He could not realize that the things which were as a thrice-told tale to him, had an overwhelming newness for her. That the influences which had molded his thought, were very far removed from the influences which had made her what she was. He could not understand that, while the world had progressed, this isolated community had remained stationary, and that the principles and rules of conduct among them, still, were those which had governed his world in the beginning of the century.
He saw that her sympathy had been aroused, that she suffered for, and with, him, and he could not forbear from striving to push the advantage. He went on speaking earnestly; he demonstrated that this marriage which had proved so disastrous was in truth no marriage, and that its annulment was just and right, for where there was no love, he argued, there could be no marriage. With all the sophistry; with all the subtle arguments of which he was master—and they were neither weak nor few—he assailed her. Every power of his brilliant intellect, every weapon of his mental armory, all the force of his indomitable will was brought to bear upon her—and brought to bear in vain.
Calm, pale, resolute, she faced him—her clear eyes meeting his, her nervous hands folded tightly together. She would not give way. In their earnestness both had risen, and they stood facing each other on the hearth-rug, their eyes nearly on a level. The man's hand rested on the mantle, and quivered with the intensity of his excitement; the woman's hung straight before her, motionless, but wrung together until the knuckles showed hard through the tense skin. She would NOT give way.
Thorne was startled and perplexed. Opposition he was prepared for, argument he could meet and possibly refute, tears and reproaches he could subdue—but dumb, quiet resistance baffled him. Suddenly he abandoned reason, cast self-control to the winds, and gave the reins to feeling. If he could not convince her through the head, he would try a surer road—the heart. Though proof against argument, would she be proof against love? He knew she loved him; he felt it in every fiber of his being, every pulse of his heart—and he was determined to win her at all hazards; his she must be; his she should be.
"My love!" he murmured, extending his arms with an appealing tenderness of look and gesture. "Come to me. Lay your sweet face on my breast, your dear arms around my neck. I need you, Princess; my heart cries out for you, and will not be denied. I can not live without you. You are mine—mine alone, and I claim your love; claim your life. What is that woman? What is any woman to me, save you, my darling—you only? My love! My love! It is my very life for which I am pleading. Have you no pity? No love for the man whose heart is calling you to come?"
Pocahontas shivered, and bent slightly forward—her face was white as death, her eyes strange and troubled. The strength and fire of his passion drew her toward him as a magnet draws steel. Was she yielding? Would she give way?
Suddenly she started erect again, and drew back a step. All the emotions, prejudices, thoughts of her past life; all the principles, scruples, influences, amid which she had been reared, crowded back on her and asserted their power. She could not do this thing. A chasm black as the grave, hopeless as death, yawned at her feet; a barrier as high as heaven erected itself before her.
"I can not come," she wailed in anguish. "Have you no mercy?—no pity for me? There is a barrier between us that I dare not level; a chasm I can not cross."
"There is no barrier," responded Thorne, vehemently, "and I will acknowledge none. I am a free man; you are a free woman, and there is no law, human or divine, to keep us asunder, save the law of your own will. If there be a chasm—which I do not see; which I swear does not exist—I will cross it. If you can not come to me, I can come to you; and I will. You are mine, and I will hold you—here in my arms, on my breast, in my heart. Have you, and hold you, so help me God!"