She spoke in a manner the most intense; and I saw how nervous and anxious she was. Yes, she had altered considerably since that day at Ryburgh when we had strolled together in the sunset and I had told her of my love, her features were sharper, paler, and more refined. Grief had left its imprint upon that sweet, pure countenance, which had always reminded me so vividly of Van Dyck’s “Madonna” in the Pitti at Florence. Do you know it? You will find it—a small picture too often unnoticed, only a foot square, hung low down in the Saloon of the Painters. It shows a marvellously beautiful face, perfect in its contour, graced by a sweet and childlike mouth with the true Cupid’s bow, and with eyes dark and searching. This perfect type of beauty so markedly resembled Edith that its photograph might almost be accepted as a portrait of her.
There, on her knees, she twice besought my forgiveness. But I remained silent. To forgive was impossible, I knew; nevertheless, I had no desire to cause her pain. Her face told me that she had already suffered sufficiently in the months that had elapsed since I had bidden her farewell at the little railway-station in rural England.
“Speak!” she cried. “Tell me, Gerald, that you love no one else beside myself—that—that you will forgive me!”
Turning to her, I grasped her hand, and, looking straight into those eyes which I had once believed to be so full of truth, honesty, and affection, I answered earnestly:
“I love no woman on earth except yourself, Edith. But to forgive is quite impossible.”
“No!” she cried wildly—“no! you cannot be cold and callous if you really love me. See! here at your feet I beseech of you to allow me to prove my innocence and show my love for you!”
“I once believed implicitly in you, Edith,” I said very gravely, still holding her hand; “but the discovery that you met your lover clandestinely beneath the very window of my room has so shaken my confidence that it is utterly impossible for you ever to re-establish it.”
“But he is not my lover!” she protested, her blanched face upturned to mine. “I swear he is not; nor has he ever been.”
“I have no proof of your declaration,” I answered, shaking my head dubiously.
“Except my oath,” she gasped in desperation. “Cannot you accept that? I swear by all I hold most sacred,” she cried, lifting her head and raising her face to Heaven—“I swear that I entertain no spark of affection for that man, and that he has never been my lover!”