“She made my love her plaything; she wore it out with base uses. She has used me despitefully; she has been the curse of my life!”
And the low answer came back steadfastly:
“‘Bless them that curse you; do good to them that despitefully use you!’ You say you have done your duty; I know you have. Cleave fast to that. Take care, lest you have not that to say by and by.”
Her voice faltered; there was a look of repressed tears about her drooped eyes. She had plainly been over the first part of this path before, but she was getting on untrodden ground.
“Duty is the principal thing; there is always some sweetness sooner or later with that; but without it, the best things will turn to ashes and dust.”
“I know, I know,” he cried. “But I can’t feel that now. I can only feel one thing; I can only care for one thing. I only know that there is but one person in all the world for me, and that duty, and reason, and heaven itself, mean nothing beside her. And it is like death to hear her say these things to me, and to know that she could not say them if she cared for me as I do for her.”
He thought her as steady as the rocks, and to her the solid earth seemed to heave round her more than the unstable sea. But she steadied herself and replied:
“Ought you not to be glad if it is not so? It would not alter your duty. Would it not make it the harder for you? Would it not make your way darker than it is?”
“Glad!” he called out, despairingly. “Glad that the sun is put out in the sky; that the earth is a desert and my heart an intolerable pang; that there is no more purpose, or spring, or desire in my life! Oh, yes, I am glad, glad! You can’t know what you say!”