“To pardon the man who has wronged you would be the higher action,” said Ella.
“It would be mere weakness,” replied Sylvester.
Ella threw out her hands in a gesture of despair, and flung herself back against the cushions. Then suddenly she bent forward again, and laid a hand upon his knee.
“For my sake, Sylvester! To save me from the shame and disgrace of it. To save me from the endless horror of what he will be suffering. My God! Do you think that he was nothing to me? That a man can be snatched from a woman's life to degradation without her feeling it? Do you think I am bloodless marble like you? Oh, I could not live with the thought of it.... It is not that I love him still. I hope never to see his face again. God knows whether I ever really loved him. But if this happens I could not live. I could not live, I tell you! You cannot do it. You shall not do it. You owe me a reparation—yes, you,” she continued passionately. “You said just now you had lived a stainless and upright life. It is a lie. It is not an upright thing to win a girl's love and then cast it aside.”
“Stop, Ella,” interrupted Sylvester; “you are talking of things you do not understand.”
“I not understand? Does the man who is lashed not understand the pain? You made me love you two years ago. I gave you my heart, a young girl's heart, fresh and whole. You kissed me. You said in looks and all but spoken words that you were going to ask me to be your wife. For a whole day I lived like a tremulous fool waiting for you. You never came. You never spoke again. I put away my woman's pride and offered myself—that evening. You rejected me with cold cynicism. You wronged me cruelly. You owe me reparation. Give it to me now,—this man's freedom. I claim it as a right from you.”
She was reckless in her self-revelation. Words came now too readily. She continued. What she said, she did not remember afterwards. Only that she had sunk on her knees before him, pleading passionately for Roderick, and that he had remained unmoved.
But as she knelt there, clutching his clothes, she looked exceedingly beautiful. With an impatient gesture she had thrust up her veil, and the sight of her young, noble face lit with terrible earnestness was a shock of strange temptation to the man. She pleaded for Roderick. A spasm of disgust, similar to that which had shaken him a month or two back when he had seen her yield to Roderick's caress, passed through him and held him speechless.
Another stoppage of the train broke the situation. Ella shrank back into the corner of her seat. Sylvester rose and crossing to the further window opened it, and looked out upon the platform. As soon as they moved on, he drew up the glass again and turned to her, his heart hardened tenfold.
“I did all that was possible,” he said. “I thought I cared for you. I found to my regret you were utterly indifferent to me. To have asked you to marry me would have been impossible.”