“Loved another! What do you mean? What other?”
So evident was the truth, the sincerity of her astonishment, that jealousy itself was rebuked and put to silence in the young man’s bosom; and he endeavored to avoid or change the subject. But the womanly indignation of the fair girl was now awakened; her pride had been touched; her delicacy wounded; her sensibilities availed in the tenderest point.
“Leave me!” she said, after a little pause, during which she, in her turn gazing upon him, now bewildered and abashed, with eyes of serene wonder, not all unmingled with contempt—“Nay! not another word—leave me—begone! You are not worthy of a woman’s love—you are not worthy to be treated or regarded as a man. Leave me, I say, and trouble me no more. Poor, weak, mean-spirited, vain, jealous, and ungenerous, begone! You know—no man knows better—the falsehood of the last words you have spoken. No man knows better their unfeelingness, their ungenerous cruelty. But if I had—if I had loved another—in what does that concern you? In what am I responsible to you for my likings or dislikings? Once and for all be it said, I love you not—should not love you, were you the only one of your sex on the face of God’s earth—and I pray God to help and protect the woman who shall love you—if ever you be loved of woman, which I for one believe not—for she shall love the veriest tyrant that ever tortured a fond heart, under the plea of loving.”
“I go,” he replied. “I am answered, once and for all. I go, and may you never need my aid, my forgiveness.”
“Forgiveness!” she exclaimed, with a contemptuous glance. “Forgiveness! I know not what you have to forgive! But you should rather pray that I may have need of them; then may you have the pleasure of refusing me at my need.”
“Ah! it is thus you think of me. It is time, then, that I should leave you. Fare you well, Theresa.”
“There is no need for farewells at present. The day is early yet; and I trust still to see your temper changed before you set forth on your journey. It would grieve my father sorely that you should leave us thus.”
“He will not know how I leave you. He will see me no more for years—perhaps never!”
“What do you mean?”
“That I shall mount my horse within this half hour, and return no more until I shall have twice crossed the Atlantic. So fare you well, Theresa.”