"Other men! Yes; but you surely know me well enough to believe me."
"It is because I believe you that I wish to save you deeper pain. You cannot command your feelings, and I—I must not listen to you now. It is wrong, shameful."
He moves impatiently. "Your words are very cruel. But to me you have always been that. You could not be true to me even for a few years."
She shudders as if a blow had struck her. "It is ungenerous to speak of that now; you know the fault was not all mine."
But Keith is in no mood to listen to her. His blood is on fire, his heart is hot and angry, and he feels that sort of rage within him that longs to spend itself in bitter words and unjust reproaches, even to one he loves as dearly as he loves Lauraine. There is a sort of savage satisfaction in making her suffer too, and he pours out a fury of wrath and reproach as she stands there mute and pale and still.
"I am not ice, like yourself," he says, in conclusion, "Other women love, and forget all else for love. You—you are too cold and prudent. I am young, and you have wrecked my whole life, and given me nothing but misery. I wish I had died a thousand deaths before I had seen you!"
A shiver as of intense cold passes over her. She knows Keith's wild temper of old, but she had not thought it was in him to speak as he had spoken to her. She forgets that a great love borders almost on hate, so intense may be its passions, its longing, its despair.
"After all," says Keith, with a mocking laugh that grates terribly on her ear, "why should I not follow your advice as well as your example? Why should I eat my heart out, and waste my life on an empty love? You have told me to leave you; that you wish to see me no more. Very well; this time I will take you at your word. I will leave you, and let the future prove who was right or wisest. I—I will go away! I will forget!"
"It is well," she says, her voice low and faint. "I deserve all you have said, and more. I have only brought sorrow to you! Go away, live your own life, forget me, and be happy again."
"Those are your last words?"