“I understand you. I believed you when you told me what you did just now—of the past.”
“What then?” she questioned, turning her eyes full on him for the first time. For a moment their eyes met; then his dropped and hers were again turned towards the sea.
“Is it possible, Mary, for us to be together, for our eyes to meet, our hands to touch, without a return of that feeling you once had for me—that was strong in you before some devil out of hell caused me to offend you?”
“Quite possible—that is a short answer to a long speech. It does not seem quite fair to try and shuffle the responsibility of your actions on to some poor imaginary devil.”
“It was a mere figure of speech. Why should you allude to things that are forgiven?”
“You alluded to them yourself. You know that they cannot be forgotten. What do you expect? Let me also talk to you in figurative language. It happens sometimes that a tree is struck by lightning and killed in an instant—leaf, branch, and root—killed and turned to dust and ashes.”
“And still there may be a living rootlet left in the soil, which will sprout and renew the dead tree in time.”
She glanced at him again and was silent. She had spoken falsely; the words which she had spoken to herself on a former occasion, when struggling against the revival of the old feeling, he had now used against her.
“Will you tell me, Mary, that there is not one living rootlet left?”
She was silent for some moments; then, feeling the blood forsake her cheeks, replied deliberately, “Not one. Can I speak plainer?”