'Do not touch me! leave me—leave me—alone! I—I have not yet said what—what I had to say to you. That—that was not what I had to say to you! I—I—must say what I—sent for you—to say.'
She pauses, gasping. It seems as if the task she had set herself was beyond her present strength.
'Do not tell me,' he says most gently; 'if it is anything that hurts you, do not tell me now; wait and tell me by and by.'
He has withdrawn at her bidding his hand from her shoulder, but has knelt down in his deep pity beside her, and tried to take in his her cold and clammy fingers. But she draws them sharply away.
'Did not I tell you to leave me alone!' she cries in a thin voice. 'Let me—let me say what I have to say to you, and have done with it. I will say it now! I must say it now! What business have you,' turning with a pitiful fierceness upon him, 'to try and hinder me?'
'I do not—I do not!' speaking in the tenderest tone. 'Tell it me of course, whatever it is, if it will give you the least relief.'
'I sent for you to tell you that it is all over—all over between us,' she says, having now mastered her sobs, and speaking with great rapidity and distinctness; 'that is what I sent for you to tell you. I wanted you to come at once, that I might tell you. Why did not you come at once? I have been a very wicked woman——'
'No, dear, no! indeed you have not!' he interrupts with an accent of excessive pain and protest.
But she goes on without heeding him:
'Or if I have not, it has been no thanks to me; it has been thanks to you, who have saved me from myself! But whatever there has been between us, it is over now. That is what I sent for you to tell you. Over! do you understand? Gone! done with! Do you understand? Why do not you say something? Do you hear? Do you understand?'