"You had good cause. I was not and could not be then—whatever it is that you love now."
"But I might have seen——"
"Seen? Seen? That's it. There was nothing to see."
Her eyes, in her pity for him, filled with tears, tears that in his anger he could not understand.
"Why are you always reminding me of what I was five years ago? I have changed. Can't a man change if you give him five years to do it in?"
"Perhaps. It's a long time."
"Time? It's an eternity. If I was a brute to you, do you suppose the consciousness of my brutality isn't a far worse punishment than anything I could have made you feel?"
She raised her eyebrows. "What? Have you been suffering all this time—this eternity?"
"Yes. That is, I'm suffering enough now."
"Then perhaps you have some idea of what you made me feel."