"Let it pass," he answered, declining as usual to speak openly upon the dreaded subject; for, to him, every word, so spoken, seemed fraught with danger. "You can guess what I mean, I daresay: and the less said the better."
"You seem always to blame me, Karl," she rejoined, her voice softening almost to tears.
"Your own heart should tell you that I have cause."
"It has been very hard for me to bear."
"Yes; no doubt. It has hurt your pride."
"And something besides my pride," rejoined Lucy, with a faint flush of resentment.
"What has the bearing and the pain for you been, in comparison with what I have had to bear and suffer!" he asked with emotion. "I, at least, have not tried to make it worse for you, Lucy, though you have for me. In my judgment, we ought to have shared the burden; and so made it lighter, if possible, for one another."
Ay, sometimes she had thought that herself. But then her womanly sense of insult, her justifiable resentment, would step in and scatter the thought to the winds. It was too bad of Karl to reflect on her "pride."
"Is it to last for ever?" she asked, after a pause.
"Heaven knows!" he answered. "Heaven knows that I have striven to do my best. I have committed no sin against you, Lucy, save that of having married you when--when I ought not. I have most bitterly expiated it."