"For Love himself took part against himself
To warn us off; and Duty, loved of love—
Oh! this world's curse, beloved but hated—came,
Like death, betwixt thy dear embrace and mine,
And crying, 'Who is this? Behold thy bride!'
She push'd me from thee."
He only holds out his hand to her. "Esther, let us be friends. I am tired of this silence and estrangement; let there be peace between us!"
"I have always wished for it," she answers meekly, laying her little trembling hand in his—"you know I have; but let us be at peace apart, and not together; that will be better. How long," she asks, impulsively, lifting quivering red lips and dew-soft eyes to his—"how long—how much longer—do you mean to stay here?"
"Why do you ask?" he says, in a troubled voice, hurt pride and hot passion struggling together. "Surely in this great wide house there is room for you and me; I am not much in your way, surely?"
"You are," she answers, feverishly—"you are in my way; you would be, in the widest house that ever was built. Every day I long more and more to be a great way off from you. I think I could breathe better if I were."
He does not answer: leaning still over her in a dumb agonised yearning, that—with the chains of another still dragging about him—may not be outspoken.
"That day we met upon the stairs," she continues, eyes and cheeks aflame and lustrous with the consuming fire within her, "you promised me you would avail yourself of the first opportunity to leave this place; a month or more is gone since then. Surely the most exacting mistress could spare you for awhile now? Why have you broken your word, then? Why are you here?"
He is silent for a few moments, questioning his own soul—questioning that conscience whose monitions he has hitherto so stoutly resisted. Then he speaks, a flush of shame making red his bronzed cheek: "Because I have been dishonest to myself and to you. This place has had an attraction for me which I see now it would not have had had she only been here. I linger about it as a man lingers about the churchyard where his one hope lies buried."
"Don't linger any longer, then," she cries, passionately, taking his hand between both hers; "don't be dishonest any more! Tell yourself the truth, if you tell no one else, and go at once, before it is too late; for if you won't, I must!"
She is weeping freely as she speaks; her tears drop hot and slow, one after another, upon his hand.