“I do understand,” he said very gently. “But, Bridget, think! You have done many things already which you felt to be right, but which must have made her suffer. Would you have them undone? You left home, for instance, and went out into the world. You left your husband”—his face darkened. “Do you think you did wrong? Dear! I know your feeling. It is terrible, this conflict between what one owes to one’s self, and one’s love, or obligation to those who stand in the way. But, Bridget, what are we to do? How will the world go on if we are to be cramped, hindered, fettered, forever? If we are never to be ourselves, never to take the path that leads highest? Suppose you had remained with your—with Travers, out of fear of hurting your mother? You would have done yourself a deadly injury, you—”
She sat silent while he spoke, and his voice grew firm with hope as she listened; but all at once she turned resolutely to him, and put her hand on his.
“Larry,” she said brokenly, “it’s no use! I’ve told myself all that many times. It doesn’t alter things. It’s true I’ve made her suffer, it’s true it couldn’t have been otherwise. There has always, always been this fight in my life. I should have left home long before I did if it hadn’t been just for this very thing. Perhaps I should never have gone at all if mother had been alone. But she wished it at last. There was father too, you see; and I—she saw at last that it was impossible for me to live at home. Then about—the other—I did it—it had to be done in spite of her; though the thought of her kept me with him three years. But, Larry, don’t you see?—don’t you see that it was different? I can’t disguise it from myself, though I want to. My God! don’t you believe I want to?” she broke out passionately, rising as she spoke. “That was a question of mother’s happiness against my self-respect, my decency; this is a question of her happiness against my happiness. I had a right—a right! I couldn’t do otherwise than to buy my self-respect, at the price even of her suffering, but I have no right—” She stopped, leaning faintly against the window frame.
“And—about me?” Carey said coldly. “Have I no claim, Bridget? You don’t seem to have thought of that.”
She turned slowly towards him, and as his eyes met hers he felt as though he had struck her. She made no answer, but sank down again, with her arm thrown out against the back of the chair, and her face hidden against it, and broke into bitter, hopeless tears.
Carey stood silent a moment, with set face, watching her. With sudden violence he stooped and drew her from the chair into his arms.
“Let everything else go,” he whispered fiercely. “We love one another. What does anything matter? You are the woman for me in all the world! I am the man for you! We belong to one another. No one—nothing—has the right to part us. Think, Bridget. Together, I believe we can do great things, live full lives, drink deep of the cup of life, and find it good. It is only offered to us once—we shall be mad if we refuse it!”
She clung to him, and was silent so long that a sense of exultant triumph began to stir at his heart. He put her away from him a little, and looked in her face with a smile.
She met his eyes steadily, and with a groan he released her.
“You are like the rest of women, after all!” he said bitterly. “You delight in sacrifice. No wonder the wheels of Fate have crushed you—you throw yourselves down before the car, and invite your doom!”