“Stop, Mr. Switzer,” said Jane, controlling her agitation and her terror. “You must not speak to me like that. You are forgetting yourself.”
“Forgetting myself!” he raged, his face livid blue and white. “Forgetting myself! Yes, yes! I forget everything but one thing. That I shall not forget. I shall not forget him nor how he stole her from me. Gott in Himmel! Him I shall never forget. No, when these hairs are white,” he struck his head with his clenched fist, “I shall still remember and curse him.” Abruptly he stayed the rush of his words. Then more deliberately but with an added intensity of passion he continued, “But no, never shall he have her. Never. God hears me. Never. Him I will kill, destroy.” He had wrought himself up into a paroxysm of uncontrollable fury, his breath came in jerking gasps, his features worked with convulsive twitchings, his jaws champed and snapped upon his words like a dog's worrying rats.
To Jane it seemed a horrible and repulsive sight, yet she could not stay her pity from him. She remembered it was love that had moved him to this pitch of madness. Love after all was a terrible thing. She could not despise him. She could only pity. Her very silence at length recalled him. For some moments he stood struggling to regain his composure. Gradually he became aware that her eyes were resting on his face. The pity in her eyes touched him, subdued him, quenched the heat of his rage.
“I have lost her,” he said, his lips quivering. “She will never change.”
“No, she will never change,” replied Jane gently. “But you can always love her. And she will be happy.”
“She will be happy?” he exclaimed, looking at her in astonishment. “But she will not be mine.”
“No, she will not be yours,” said Jane still very gently, “but she will be happy, and after all, that is what you most want. You are anxious chiefly that she shall be happy. You would give everything to make her happy.”
“I would give my life. Oh, gladly, gladly, I would give my life, I would give my soul, I would give everything I have on earth and heaven too.”
“Then don't grieve too much,” said Jane, putting her hand on his arm. “She will be happy.”
“But what of me?” he cried pitifully, his voice and lips trembling like those of a little child in distress. “Shall I be happy?”