With a kind of bound she sat up, her hands clenched upon the cushions that supported her. Her expression checked his words in mid-flow.
"Stop, stop—you must stop!" she cried piercingly, "or I don't know what will happen! You think a woman is a thing you can beat, swear at, insult, and then appease with presents! Didn't I tell you I would have no gifts from you? I'll bear your unkindness, but I won't take your presents! If you could understand—oh, how can I make you understand?"
Lifting her hands, she held them before her, glaring upon them as if they were contaminated. Fumbling in her vehement haste, she pulled off her wedding-ring and both the others which he had given her, and flung them upon the floor at his feet. "I wear them when I must," she sobbed out; "but at night I tear them off! I shake myself free of them, and then I feel clean—clean at last! I lie down in bed and tell myself that I am just Virgie Mynors again—as I used to be—ill, hungry, penniless—but clean! Clean!"
As suddenly as she had upreared herself she collapsed, hid her face and lay prone while the sobbing tore her and shook her slight frame.
He stood some seconds motionless. Her outburst seemed to have frozen him. Then, in silence, he picked up her rings, laid them on the little table at her side, and walked away into his own room, shutting the door behind him.
CHAPTER XVI
RENOUNCEMENT
"I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong,
I shun the thought that lurks in all delight—
The thought of thee—and in the blue Heaven's height,
And in the sweetest passage of a song.
Oh, just beyond the fairest thoughts that throng
This breast, the thought of thee awaits, hidden yet bright;
But it must never, never come in sight;
I must go short of thee, the whole day long."
—Alice Meynell.