The Bondman: A New Saga

by Sir Hall Caine

"Tell me, tell me. I cannot, and I will not bear it."

But he knew, without lifting his head, that with all her brave challenge, and the spark of her defiant eyes, behind her dark lashes a great tear-drop lay somewhere veiled. So he showed no anger, and neither did he reply to her appeal, but made some show of going on with his writing.

And being now so far recovered from her first fear as to look upon his face with eyes that could see it, Greeba realized all that she had but partly guessed from the chatter of her maid, of the sad havoc the night had made with him. At that she could bear up no longer, for before her warm woman's feeling all her little stubborn spirit went down as with a flood, and she flung herself at his feet and cried, "Michael, forgive me; I don't know what I am saying."

But getting no answer to her passionate agony any more than her hot disdain, her pride got the better of her again, and she tried to defend herself with many a simple plea, saying between a sob and a burst of wrath that if she had deceived him, and said what was barely true, it was only from thinking to defend his happiness.

"And why," she cried, "why should I marry you while loving him?"

Then, for the first time, he raised his head and answered her—

"Because of your pride, Greeba—your fatal pride," he said; "your pride that has been your bane since you were a child and you went to London and came back the prouder of your time there. I thought it was gone; but the old leaven works as potently as before, and rises up to choke me. I ought to have known it, Greeba, that your old lightness would lead you to some false dealing yet, and I have none but myself to blame."

Now if he had said this with any heat of anger, or with any rush of tears, she would have known by the sure instinct of womanhood that he loved her still, and was only fighting against love in vain. Then she would have flung herself into his arms with a burst of joy and a cry of "My darling, you are mine, you are mine." But instead of that he spoke the hard words calmly, coldly, and without so much as a sigh, and by that she knew that the heart of his love had been killed within him, and now lay dead before her. So, stung to the quick, she said, "You mean that I deserted Jason because he was poor, and came here to you because you are rich. It is false—cruelly, basely false. You know it is false; or, if you don't, you ought."

"I am far from rich, Greeba," he said, "although to your pride I may seem so, seeing that he whom you left for the sake of the poor glory of my place here was but a friendless sailor lad."

"I tell you it is false," she cried. "I could have loved my husband if he had never had a roof over his head. And yet you tell me that? You that should know me so well! How dare you?" she cried, and by the sudden impulse of her agony, with love struggling against anger, and fire and tears in her eyes together, she lifted up her hand and struck him on the breast.