"Norine, I swear—"
"Hush-h-h! pray don't perjure yourself. Was it to tell me this you came here this evening, Mr. Thorndyke?"
"To tell you, Norine, what I am sure you do not know. What I never knew myself until of late, that you and you alone have ever been my wife; that our marriage was a marriage, legal and true—that you, not Helen, are my lawful wife. To tell you this and much more, if you will listen. From my soul I have repented of the past; how bitterly, none may know. I left you—great Heaven! I sit and wonder at my own madness now; and all the time I loved you as I never loved any one else. I married Helen Holmes—yes, I cannot deny it, but what was I to do? I was bound to her, she loved me, 'my honor rooted in dishonor stood,' and I married her. There is horrible fatality in these things. While I knelt before the altar pledging myself to her, my whole heart was back with you. I will own it—despise me more than you do already, if that be possible—I married her for her wedding dower, and because I dared not offend Mr. Darcy. Wealth so won could bring little happiness. I fled from home and her presence to drown remorse and the memory of my lost love in drink. So poverty came. I was reckless. Whether you lived or died I did not know, I dared not ask—in abandoning you I had spoiled my whole life. Then suddenly you reappeared, beautiful as a dream, so far off, so cold, so unapproachable—you my love! my love! once my very own. You held me at arm's-length—you refused to listen to a word, and all the time my heart was on fire within me. To-night I have come to speak at last. Norine, I have sinned, I have suffered, I have repented. What more can I say? I love you madly, I always loved you. Say you forgive me, or I will never rise from your feet!"
Once more he cast himself before her, real passion, its utmost abandonment, in every tone. She had let him rave on, never moving, her cold eyes fixed upon him, full of hard, contemptuous fire.
"You mean all this, Mr. Thorndyke? Yes, I see you do. And you love me—you always loved me, even when you cast me off and married Miss Holmes, really and truly?"
"Really and truly! I swear it, Norine?"
"No—don't swear, please—it's against my principles to encourage profanity. But isn't it rather late in the day to tell me all this? There is your wife—you don't care for her, of course, but still you see she is your wife, in the eye of the world at least. And a gentleman's wife is rather an obstacle when that gentleman makes love to another lady."
The fine irony of her tone he did not hear—the scorn of her eyes he did not see. The "madness of the gods" was upon him—blind and deaf he was going to his doom.
"An obstacle, but an obstacle easily set aside. In any case I mean to have a divorce. I never cared for her—there are times when I loathe her now. A divorce, with permission to marry again I shall obtain, and then, Norine—"
He moved as though to clasp her. With a shudder of horror and repulsion she waved him back. And still he was blind.