“Ever since a motherless boy let a childless woman love him. Oh, think that I do love you, my dear, and speak to you out of my jealousy for your stainless good faith, your sacred friendship, your unsullied life! You know what I mean. Think that she is pledged by everything that is good in her to your friend. If you believe she does not love him, let her break with him how and when she will. But don’t you be her wicked hope—wickeder a thousand times than she!—don’t be the temptation, the refuge of her falseness. Leave her to herself! You could only add your treason to hers by staying!”
“Wicked hope, temptation, treason—this is all rather theatrical for you, Susan,” said Gilbert, with an attempt to smile. He frowned instead. “And what do I owe to Easton in the way of loyalty? Do you know how little care he has had for me? Do you know—”
“No, no, no! I don’t know, I won’t know! If he has wronged you in any way, you are only the more bound to be faithful to him in such a case as this. But I will never believe that Easton has wronged you willingly, and you don’t believe it, either, whatever the trouble is that she made between you—you know you don’t. You are talking away your own sense of guilt, or trying to. Well, I can’t blame you for that; but keep these things to silence your conscience with when you are alone; you will need them all. How long have you watched by your friend’s pillow with the hope of revenge in your heart?”
Mrs. Gilbert rose from her chair and walked to one of the windows, and then came and paused in front of Gilbert, where he now stood leaning against the mantelpiece. “Come,” she entreated, “you will go away, won’t you, William? I know you never meant him wrong. It has all been something that has stolen upon you, but you will go now, won’t you?”
“No, I will not go!”
“Till such time as I see fit. I am not a boy, to be sent hither and thither.”
“What good will you remain for?” demanded the woman, sternly. “Or do you choose to remain for evil? Every hour that you remain deepens your responsibility. Some things have been talked of already. How long will it be before the whole house sees that you are in love with the woman promised to your friend?”
“Do you suppose I care what this houseful of spying, tattling women see or say?”
“There are no spies and no tattlers; but if they were, a man who hadn’t shut his senses against his own conscience would care. No one blames you as yet, but the time will soon be when you will make the blame all your own.”