I waited expecting her to continue, but she remained silent.
“Speak, why do you pause?” I asked, impatiently I am afraid.
“I paused, Stuart, because I am doubtful as to how you will take what I am about to say.”
“As you mean it, be assured,” I answered.
“Then listen, and I will tell you.” Again she hesitated, pressing her hand upon her eyes, the while her soft bust heaved with a troublous emotion. Presently, in the same low, faltering voice as before, she said: “You will remember, Stuart, that I fled from you in Luchon with a cold formal note of farewell. On that day, blindly, willingly I took upon myself the burthen of another’s sin. Blindly I resigned myself to a fate worse than that of the doomed. Although I loved you fondly, I was forced to bow my head calmly and submit to be branded with a very leprosy of guilt. Because I loved you and permitted your attentions I was to be a painted puppet, to move about with a curse riveted around my life, to move about and even feel that curse fretting and gnawing at my soul, and yet without the power to win a moment’s peace save in the grave. There, only there, might I find rest.”
“This is terrible,” I cried. “Surely you deceive yourself. There is no power on earth that could have held you thus.”
“Ah! yes. The chain was there—there, clasped around my heart, crushing out every gleam of hope. I was light-hearted and heedless; I could not see the life of torture to which I was yielding myself, so innocently I fell into the trap my enemies had cunningly baited, that ere I realised the truth the bonds were irrevocably welded around my life. At first they sat lightly upon me, and I scarcely felt them; but slowly I became conscious that there hung a deep shadow upon my every step; slowly I became conscious that my every act and word must be in unison with the thraldom under which I moved. At last I knew that I had passed beyond your ken; I knew that I must renounce all thought of you, and I became cold and, I sometimes think, callous. But I prayed, I begged of Heaven that I might lose the feelings of a woman since I had lost her privileges.”
She spoke in a hot, dry feverish tone—a tone that I would not have recognised as that of the low, musical voice of my love. Dora, rising from her seat, stood near her, gazing in wonder at her friend from whose agony these revelations were wrung.
“When I met you, Stuart, I was giddy and thoughtless,” she went on, feverishly. “Towards you my whole soul yearned. Heart, soul and life were all yours; for I loved, I loved! But, alas! our supreme happiness was not for long. In fear of my liberty, I was compelled to fly from you and allow you to believe I had forgotten. Thus in the first moment almost, when a sweet vision of joy flashed upon me, the door of my dungeon was closed, the chains were clasped tightly around my soul, and I was wrenched back from happiness.”
Low tremulous sobs interrupted each word, and every moment it seemed as if she were about to lose control over herself.