"True! angel-hearted—oh, my God!" she shuddered to herself, and a longing came over her to be all that he thought her, honest, innocent, true. Should she confess all, and trust to his great love to pity and pardon her?
She lifted her dark, wistful eyes to his glowing, eager face.
"If you had not loved me perhaps you would have forgiven the wrong Mrs. Merivale did you," she said, anxiously.
The stern lines she dreaded came around his lips again.
"I forgave her long ago—as long ago as my fancy for her died!" he said. "But I can never respect her, nor even like her again. She deceived me. I can never forget that! Women should be little lower than the angels, Beatrix.
"'A perfect creature, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command,
And yet a spirit still and bright,
With something of an angel's light.'"
Wordsworth's ideal is mine, Beatrix. I could never again love a woman who had deceived me. Once fallen from her lofty pedestal, the broken idol could never be restored again!"
He was unconsciously warning her, but he only frightened her. She said to herself that he would never forgive her if she told him at this late day how she had deceived him. And she could not do it. She would not risk it. She loved him too dearly. She would have his love while she could, whether it lasted for a year or a day.
"Why did you deceive her this evening?" she asked, gaining courage as she made her wild resolve. "You were so devoted and attentive she thought she had won you back."