“You cannot, therefore, be hampered with a poor wife; she would be a miserable clog upon your laudable ambition. Love, pure and holy though it might be, weighs as nothing compared with the treasures you seek,” she went on, until, goaded to desperation by her scorn, he turned upon her with a snarl.
“You have learned the truth at last—what more do you want?”
“I want to know, George Sumner—and I charge you speak the truth—did you ever love me as I understand the word? Is there anything of that feeling still in your heart for me? Is there a particle of feeling in your heart that would prompt you to sacrifice a single interest to save me from my impending ruin? Do not dare to speak falsely—tell me, have you any love for me?” she concluded, with a solemnity that made his flesh creep, bold and bad as he was.
With his eyes fixed upon the carpet, as though they had been weighted and held there, he answered:
“No; I do not love you, Marion.”
“Is there one in all the world whom you do love thus?”
“Not one,” he said.
“Not even among the ‘dozen’ with whom you have flirted?” she said, with a hard laugh.
He cringed uneasily. He was showing himself up in a way that was not at all agreeable to him.
“Enough!” she cried, sternly, without waiting for him to reply; and she arose and stood before him, confronting him like an avenging angel. “George Sumner, you are a heartless wretch, selfish to the core, and bent upon your own sensual enjoyment alone. You stand there and seek to cast the blame of my misery all upon me. You say ‘you’ could not help it. I ‘gave myself away to you so readily,’ and ‘adopted your proposals too eagerly.’ Who was it that begged and pleaded for my love, who could not live without me, who would be willing to share a crust, so that he might but be blessed with my presence? Who was it that swore life-long devotion to me, and tempted me with blissful pictures of ‘love in a cottage,’ and whose heart would break if separated from me for but a day? It does not sound so well repeated under existing circumstances, does it, my aspiring knight?” she continued, even more bitterly: “the heart of the sentiment is gone, and it becomes but an empty, mocking sound. But do you realize how young I was, George Sumner?” she said, speaking sternly now—“sixteen! with no mother to guide me, no dear, wise friend in whom to confide, or of whom to seek counsel. You were twenty-two, and had flirted with a dozen before me. Did you ruin them all, traitor, coward that you are? Did you lure them all into secret marriages, and then cast them off in their misery, as you are to-night casting me? Or were they wiser than I—not so eager to give themselves away, or to adopt your proposals?