"You are mistaken," he answers, with quick violence. "By God's help, I'll never see you again after to-night."
Hearing that heavy sentence, her knees tremble beneath her a little; a momentary dimness comes over her eyes; voice, breath, and heart seem to suspend their functions. No word of protest, of lamentation, of entreaty, crosses her whitened lips.
"What right have I to be with you?" he asks, indignantly—"I, who cannot see you without coveting you? What right have I to steal another man's wife, any more than his horse or his money?"
"Let me go, then," she answers, with a low, moaning sigh—"since it must be so. You know what is right better than I do. Good-bye!"
"Good-bye!" he answers, very shortly, and turns away his head sharply, that only the lake and the stars may see the distortion that the passion of that parting is working on his face.
"Say you forgive me before I go!" says the tender, tremulous voice, that might unman a hero—might unsaint an anchorite—as she lingers yet a little minute beside him.
"Why should I say what is not true?" he asks, turning round roughly upon her. "I don't forgive you, and never shall, either in this world or the next."
"You must!" she says, sobbingly, the words coming a little wildly through a tempest of tears. "I cannot go unless you do; if I went now, I should remember you all my life as you are to-day; to-day would blot out all the happy hours we have been together!"
For all answer he turns away from her, and buries his face in his hands.
"Look at me kindly once again!" she says, calmness growing out of her strong emotion, putting up her two small hands and trying to draw his away from before his hidden face. "I may be very wicked; I suppose I am—as you say so—mean, underhand, deceitful; but yet, for the sake of what is gone, look at me kindly once again: that won't hurt you, as it is for the very last time!"