“Then, don’t let her ever find it out. Be kind to her, and gentle, and forbearing.”
“I can’t be kind and gentle and forbearing day after day for weeks and months and years. And the worst of it is there’s no hope for me. I’ve tried honestly to make the best of things, but it’s no good. We’re too different, and it’s impossible that we should continue to live together. Everything she says, everything she does, jars upon me so frightfully. A man, when he marries a woman like that, thinks he’s going to lift her up to his own station. The fool! It’s she who drags him down to hers.”
She walked from end to end of the room distracted, and mingled feelings tore her breast. She knew how overwhelming was her own love, and knew that his was no less; she could not bear to think that he was unhappy. She stopped, and looked at him with tear-filled eyes.
“If it weren’t for you I couldn’t have lived,” he was saying, and his voice played upon her heart-strings as though they were some strange living instrument. “It was only by seeing you that I gathered courage to go on with it. And each time I came here I loved you more passionately.”
“Why did you come?” she whispered.
“I couldn’t help it. I knew it was poison, but I loved the poison. I would give my whole soul for one look of your eyes.”
It was the first time he had said such things to her, and they were very, very sweet; but she tried to be strong.
“If you care for me at all, do your duty like a brave man, and let me respect you. You’re only making our friendship impossible. Don’t you see that you’re preventing me from ever having you here again?”
“I can’t help it. Even if I see you never again, I must tell you now that I love you. For months it’s been burning my tongue, and I’ve scarcely known sometimes how to prevent myself. I made you suffer, I was blind; but I love you with all my heart, Hilda. I can’t live without you.”
He stepped forward, but quickly, with a cry of anguish, she sprang back.