"No, no," he answers soothingly, "of course I don't. I can't imagine what made me blurt out such nonsense. Give me a kiss, a little one, a last kiss, and let me go."
"And let you go!" she echoes wildly. "How can I do that with such a threat ringing in my ears? Do you think I have no heart, no feeling left, because I am married—no memory?"
"You have a husband, good, kind, and—what is it?—generous and unselfish. Keep your heart, your feelings for him; cast out the memory of me from your life, for I will never cross your path again; forget me from this hour—let my fate not trouble you henceforth; do you hear? This is my last, my only request. Forget me; go back to your husband, Adelaide, and sleep out your life in peace and—and happiness by his side."
"Sleep out my life in peace and happiness," she echoes bitterly. "Vain request! You have murdered sleep for me to-night—destroyed happiness. Why did you come? Could you not have let me be? Oh, I have suffered since I saw you last—suffered, suffered! And now—now, when a glimpse of rest, of happiness even, was coming to me with the summer, you step in and take it from me. Heaven pity me, Heaven pity me!"
"Hush, hush!" he cries, his voice tremulous with pathos. "I will not have you say that. I want nothing from you—nothing, I tell you, but forgetfulness—nothing; blot out the memory of this hour, the memory of that cowardly unmeaning whisper—forget it—forget, my Adelaide!"
"I can not, I can not, for something tells me that it was not without meaning. And I loved you once—oh, yes, I loved you once! I was only a child, I know; but I loved you. Can I now live and feel myself your murderess? I can not."
Crying bitterly, she buries her face on his breast. He leans over her, murmuring tender, soothing words; while Armstrong, whose presence they are too absorbed, too agitated to notice, stands beside them, his hot breath almost fanning their averted faces, beads of perspiration standing out on his forehead at the mighty effort he is making to restrain the instinct that urges him to hurl them asunder, trample to death the shapely sweet-voiced lover, and overwhelm her with the discovery of her treachery and deceit. But he restrains himself. After all, what is she to him, or he to her, his wife in name only? Her past he entered not into—their future will be spent apart. What have they in common? Nothing but the memory of two short weeks of union, which to him and her alike were clouded with bitterness, repulsion, and torturing recollection. Why then should he make himself ridiculous, pose as an outraged husband? He does not value her compassionate appreciation of his worth, does not want her tears, her kisses, her love. Why, then, in Heaven's name, should he interfere with her lover's enjoyment of them, the lover whom she jilted for his gold?
"Let her and him go to the dogs!" he mutters, striding away contemptuously. "Let the chapter of my married bliss close as it may, I care not a jot!"
He goes without one backward glance, and thus seals the fate of his life and hers.
The echo of his footsteps startles them; they move apart, look apprehensively around, but no further movement is to be heard.