"You had your art to sustain you. She had but one thought—and that of you."
"She has done me a cruel wrong," said he, irritably.
"She has never done anything to you but good, and out of love," answered the girl vehemently.
"To me; that is not it."
Mehetabel raised her eyes and looked at him. He was gazing moodily at the fire.
"She has stabbed me through you," exclaimed Iver, with a sudden outburst of passion. "Why do you plead my mother's cause, when it was she—I know it was she, and none but she—who thrust you into this hateful, this accursed marriage."
"No, Iver, no!" cried Mehetabel in alarm. "Do not say this. Iver! talk of something else."
"Of what?"
"Of anything."
"Very well," said he, relapsing into his dissatisfied mood. "You asked me once what my dream had been, that I dreamt that first night under your roof. I will tell you this now. I thought that you and I had been married, not you and Jonas, you and I, as it should have been. And I thought that I looked at you, and your face was deadly pale, and the hand I held was clay cold."