“Did you take her ignorantly? Have you kept her only because the law made you? I know you better. What will become of her if you cast her off? She might be worse than she is.”
She turned away and shuddered. Her words pierced him the deeper because they were the same Cora had used, because they were his own smothered thoughts.
He was silent, leaning against a great rock as he stood before her, and she went on, with rising passion:
“And beware for your own sake. If you throw her off, she will draw you down with her, you and all—” she caught her breath—“all connected with you. You cannot punish her as a criminal. What could you say to justify your action? Think of the position you would stand in before the world, with your tongue tied. You could not bear it. In your heat you may think you could, but you might as well think to resist the sea. Beware lest in your haste you throw away the good you have gained. For you have gained. Your power over her is multiplied tenfold. Your freedom is your power. She must know she is in your hands now; the fences are all down. She will know she can no longer presume; her instincts of self-preservation will weigh on your side, and your forbearance be a perpetual restraint upon her. I think you have no good alternative, and that your duty is plain. Don’t think I am hard; we have all our tasks that seem too heavy at times. We can’t understand; ‘His ways are past finding out.’”
Her voice grew tremulous, and she held her face away a minute or two, but then looked up and smiled faintly:
“‘Theirs not to make reply; theirs not to reason why.’ Who knows what great things you may accomplish yet?”
All his sense went with her, down in some unseen depth; but above that rolled a stream whose waves bore him past all resistance. And now the billows swept over him and were bitter in his eyes and throat. He bent backward and rested his head upon the high rock, and stretched up his arms above him. The freshness of the morning turned to ashy pallor; the land and the sea sickened with pain.
Slowly he bent forward again:
“All that is true, I have no doubt. You have clear eyes, and some day I may see it so myself. But I can’t see, I can’t hear that now. There is only one thing I can see or hear. I disowned it, I put it away, I crushed it down; I was faithful to the galling bond; I did my duty!”
He raised his arms again; his voice was like a cry to heaven: