I haven’t.
GERALD.
If you only knew——
MARGERY.
I know I haven’t! what’s the use of words? Do you think a woman doesn’t know when she’s not loved, or is? When you first said you loved me, down in the fields yonder, do you suppose you took me by surprise? You had no need to swear. I knew you loved me, just as certainly as I know now you don’t!
GERALD [much moved].
Oh, what a scoundrel I was, Margery!
MARGERY.
No man’s a scoundrel to the woman he loves. Ah, it was easy to forgive your loving me. But I’ll do something that is not so easy. I will forgive you for not loving me. It’s been a struggle. For the last fortnight I haven’t said a word, because I wasn’t master of myself, and I didn’t want to speak till I’d forgiven you. I wasn’t listening, Gerald. Heaven knows I would have given all the world not to have heard a word; but when you spoke my name, I couldn’t move. The ground seemed slipping underneath my feet, and all the happiness of all my life went out of it in those three words, “Margery’s hopeless, hopeless!”
GERALD.