“I do not say that I would, nor that I would not. A desperate man is not to be depended on either by himself or others. I only know that in this fearful upheaval of all my life’s aims and ends, any fate seems easier than living. But Mellville—” his tones were now quiet, but they were firm; his lips were set in angles of immovable resolve; his brow bent and dark with the shadows of unlifting determination. It would be difficult to imagine a more striking figure than Jerome in the rôle of a man who had made up his mind—
“But Mellville, this struggle must end. It must end now, or it will put an end to us. I did not come here to-night to submit to the humiliation of begging a woman to marry me against her will. I came to rescue a being in distress from the painful consequences of her own rash act. Now, then, you love me, or you do not? You will marry me, or you will not? Which is it? Answer! In five minutes I leave this house, with or without you!”
He dropped upon his knees at her feet; he snatched her to his breast. Reason was gone, his soul all aflame:
“Mell, listen: Love is more than raiment, more than food, more than the world’s censure or the world’s praise. It is sweeter in life than life itself! But time presses; the other wedding comes on apace; we have no time to spare. An hour’s hard driving will bring us to Parson Fordham’s, well known to me. There we will be married at once, and catch the early train at Pudney. Our names will be an execration and a by-word for a little time, but what of that? What though all friends turn their backs upon us! Together we will enter hopefully upon a new life, loving God and each other—a life of truer things, Mell; a life consecrated to each other and glorified by perfect love and perfect trust. Will you lead that life with me?”
“No, I will not!”
“What, Mellville!” he cried. “You will not! I thought you loved me, loved me as I loved you?”
“Once I loved you,” she said. She spoke now as much to her own soul as to his perceptions. “Once—or was it only that I thought I did? For long weeks I struggled against deceiving Rube, and out of that I must have drifted by slow degrees into deceiving myself. For, to-night, even to-night, when I parted from Rube I thought it was you I loved, not he! But the mists have lifted from my vision, and now, at this moment—never fully until this moment—I see you both in your true light; I weigh you understandingly, one against the other; I set your self-seeking against his unselfishness, your improbity against his high sense of honor. And how 319 plainly I see it all! Just as if a moral kaleidoscope were exhibiting by spiritual reflections, to the eyes of my mind, the difference between one man and another, at an angle of virtue which is the aliquot part of three hundred and sixty degrees of real merit! Upon this disk of the imagination appears your own image; and what are you doing? Passing me by as an unknown thing, a thing too small to know in the presence of mighty magnates at a county picnic! There is another manly form; what is he doing? Lifting me up from the bare earth where the other’s cruel slights have crushed me; feeding me with his own hands; even then loving me. How different the pictures! Shift the scene. Some one is crowning me: I am a queen before the world. Whose hand has held a crown for me? Not yours—Rube’s! You had not the courage. He had. I love courage in a man. I love it better than a handsome face or an oily tongue. A man without courage—what is he? He isn’t a man at all—not really. Jerome Devonhough,” here she turned her lovely face, grown so cold, and her exquisite eyes, grown so scornful, full upon him, “were you the right sort of a man, would you be here to-night? Will a man, false to his friend, be true to his wife? I can trust Rube Rutland; can I trust you? No! For, even while loving, I could not keep down a feeling of contempt. Beginning with respect for Rube, that sentiment of respect has ripened into love—real love—not the wild, senseless, mad, unreasoning passion of an untutored girl, which eats into its own vitals, and drains its own lees,—as mine for you,—but that deeper, better, higher, more enduring, and well-nigh perfect affection of the full-lived woman, who out of deep suffering has emerged into an enlightened conception of her own nature’s needs, her own heart’s craving for what is best, truest, most God-like in a man! That love, which will wear well, nor grow threadbare through time, which will take on a more wondrous glow in the realms of eternity, is the love I feel for Rube!”
“Bah!” he exclaimed, not yet quenched, not yet hopeless. “Eternity is a long word, and all your fine talking cannot deceive me! Oh, woman, woman, what a face you have, and what brains! I do not know which holds me tighter. That face so fair, that mind so subtle—together they might well turn the head of the devil himself, but they cannot deceive me! The string which draws you is golden. It is not Rube you love so much, so purely, so perfectly; oh, no, not Rube! Not Rube, but his possessions. Not the man—the man’s house! Its beautiful turrets and gables, its gardens and lawns, its lovely views, and spacious luxury, and abounding wealth. For that you give me up. Still loving me, Rube’s pelf is dearer still!”
“Not now—not now! Now I love him—the man! Not for what he has, but for what he is. For his truth, his nobility, his honor; and, as that honor is in my keeping, I bid you go and return no more. Your power to tempt me from my duty and my love is over! My faith is grounded, my purpose unalterable. Go!”
“This is folly. Come with me!” he cried, striving to draw her towards the door.