"If you had known," he repeated, looking at her with wistful eyes. "Edith, if you really had known—if I had dared to tell you all I have told you to-night, would you not have shrunk from me in fear and horror, as a monster who pretended to love you and yet longed for your life? Sane on all other points—how would you have comprehended my strange madness on that? It is gone now—thank God—in my weakness and dying hour, and there is nothing but the love left. But my own, if I had told you, if you had known, would you not have feared and left me?"
She looked at him with brave, steadfast, shining eyes.
"If I had known," she answered, "how your father killed your mother, how his madness was yours, I would have pitied you with all my heart, and out of that pity I would have loved you. I would never have left you—never. I could never have feared you, Victor; and this I know—what you dreaded never would have come to pass. I am as sure of it as that I kneel here. You would never have lifted your hand against my life."
"You think so?" Still with that wistful, earnest gaze.
"I know so—I feel it—I am sure of it. You could not have done it—I should never have been afraid of it, and in time your delusion would have worn entirely away. You are naturally superstitious and excitable—morbid, even; the dreadful excitement of your father's story and warning, were too much for you to bear alone. That is all. If you could have told me—if I could have laughed at your hypochondrical terrors, your cure would have been half effected. No, Victor, I say it again—I would never have left you, and you would never have harmed a hair of my head."
Her tone of resolute, conviction seemed to bring conviction even to him. The sad, wistful light deepened in his blue eyes.
"Then it has all been in vain," he said very sadly; "the suffering and the sacrifice—all these miserable months of separation and pain."
Again Lady Helena advanced and interposed, this time with authority.
"It won't do," she said; "Edith you must go. All this talking and excitement may end fatally. If you won't leave him he won't sleep a wink to-night; and if he passes a sleepless night who is to answer for the consequences? For his sake you must go. Victor tell her to go—she will obey you."
She looked at him beseechingly, but he saw that Lady Helena was right, and that Edith herself needed rest. It was easy to make one more sacrifice now, and send her away.