“But, then, why? in God’s name, why? what is it, Silas? are you mad or sane? Are we to be your toys? What have we done to you? What had Hannah done?”
“Hannah?...”
“You killed Hannah.”
He still held her down on a chair, and by the high standard of their present stress the retrospective admission that he had killed Hannah seemed to them both subordinate. He was breathing heavily.
“Hannah laughed at me and fooled me; she was rough with me, and sweet-tongued enough with other men. I wasn’t going to be fooled by Hannah. She’d thrown in her lot with mine, and if I suffered she should suffer too. That’s why I killed Hannah. The world’s been made black for me; I’ll make it black for others.”
“It’s awful, your revengefulness.... But I tried to make it less black, Silas, so did Linnet; look, I don’t ask you now to help me, or to tell me anything, but only to let me go,—won’t you, Silas? It’s so easy for you to keep me here; I can’t escape from your strength if you’re determined to hold me. But I beg you; I beseech you. Often you tried me high, and if I failed you I ask your forgiveness. Only let me go now. Don’t help me; I don’t ask that; only give me the chance of helping myself. I ask with all the patience and humbleness in me; I’m in bitter anguish, Silas. Gregory’s hard enough, Heaven knows, but he’s got the heart of a woman next to you.”
“Gregory’s less bereft than I; I only have my own mind to feed upon.”
“Surely that’s true of us all, blind or not blind?” she said, in a weak attempt at argument.
“Then I was born with a darkened mind, not only with darkened eyes,” he exclaimed violently, and with renewed determination. “I’m cursed with the one as much as with the other, and though God knows no justice I’ll throw in my quota to balance the scales: I never deserved the curse I got, but, since I got it, I’ll deserve it; and I’ll see to it that others get something they don’t deserve, as I did myself. Did you ever consider what blindness meant? To be dependent on others’ charity, to be a burden, a maimed thing? above all to have to submit to pity, when you were born with a spirit that wanted the envy of other men?”
“Silas, Silas, all that’s just words, and meantime you’re draining the life out of me.”