"Good and pure!" cries Lauraine, with sudden passionate shame; "had I been that I should never have paltered with temptation one single moment. I should have been deaf to your entreaties and persuasions that summer night. I should have sent you from me then, not weakly yielded to a course of action that has made me as wretched as yourself."
"You could never be that," he says, looking down at her anguished face. "You are too cold, too proud. But so much the better. I would not wish the worst foe I had to endure what I have endured for you, and shall endure, I suppose, till I die. That sounds rather like mock heroics," he adds, with a little bitter laugh; "but I think you know me better than to suppose it's 'put on.' I made up my mind when I saw you that I would tell you this farce could not go on. I shall tell Nan the same. She's a good little thing, and is worth a better fate than she would have as my wife. God! The mockery of that word! At night sometimes it is as if a chorus of fiends were jabbering it in my ears, and driving me mad with the horrible sound."
"What will you say—how explain?" falters Lauraine.
"Oh, you need not be afraid that your name will suffer," he says, with bitterness. "I shall take care of that. Let her think me the mean, contemptible cur I am."
The hot cruel colour flies into Lauraine's cheeks.
"You are ungenerous to say that!" she exclaims. "I am not afraid of what any one says. I know I am to blame. But because I have erred once it is no reason that I should do so again. Right and wrong are set plainly enough before us. I have tried, feebly enough, to keep to the straight path; I cannot forget duty, honour, so easily. If I could—if I had—oh, Keith, ask yourself, would your love be what it is now?"
"No; it would not," he says slowly. "Though I am so bitter against you I would not have you shamed by my selfishness. I—I think—so much at least you have taught me. But you—understand, do you not? I cannot do impossibilities, and—now at last, I come to you to say 'Good-bye.'"
A sudden mist of tears dims her eyes. It seems as if all around grows cold and grey, and a barrier of ice stands between her and any hope of happiness.
There is a long silence. He still leans there, his head on his hand, his face turned towards her as if to gaze his last on the beauty he loves and remembers with so absorbed and passionate a fidelity. Her eyes, amidst those blinding tears, meet his own longing gaze. She rises from her seat and holds out her hand, while her voice, broken and full of unutterable sadness, cries out: "Oh, Keith, what should I say—what should I do? May God have mercy on us both."
"If you wish His mercy on you, don't cry," says Keith hoarsely, "or you will make me so desperate that I shall forfeit any little bit of kindness you may still feel! Be cold, cruel, scornful if you please, but don't drive me mad with sight of your sorrow. Mine I can bear—it is no new friend. But yours——" Lauraine dashes the tears from her eyes, and makes a violent effort at self-control. "I cannot ask you to forgive me," she says; "it would be better if you could learn to hate me. I wonder you do not, when you think of all the sorrow I have brought into your life."