'Not at all.I care nothing for what the world thinks.I am below all that.It is what I think of myself,--of myself.'
'Will you think of no one else? Are any of your thoughts for me, --or for your father?'
'Oh yes;--for my father.'
'I need hardly tell you what he wishes.You must know how you can best give him back the comfort he has lost.'
'But, Arthur, even for him I cannot do everything.'
'There is one question to be asked,' he said, rising from her feet and standing before her;--'but one; and what you do should depend entirely on the answer which you may be able truly make to that.'
This he said so solemnly that he startled her.
'What question, Arthur?'
'Do you love me?' To this question at the moment she could make no reply.'Of course I know that you did not love me when you married him.'
'Love is not all of one kind.'
'You know what love I mean.You did not love me then.You could not have loved me,--though, perhaps, I thought I had deserved your love.But love will change and memory will some times bring back old fancies when the world has been stern and hard.When we were very young I think you loved me.Do you remember seven years ago at Longbarns, when they parted us and sent me away, because,--because we were so young? They did not tell us then, but I think you knew.I know that I knew, and went nigh to swear that Iwould drown myself.You loved me then, Emily.'
'I was a child then.'
'Now you are not a child.Do you love me now,--to-day? If so, give me your hand, and the past be buried in silence.All this has come and gone, and has nearly made us old.But there is life before us yet, and if you are to me as I am to you it is better that our lives should be lived together.' Then he stood before her with his hand stretched out.
'I cannot do it,' she said.
'And why?'
'I cannot be other than the wretched thing I have made myself.'
'But do you love me?'
'I cannot analyse my heart.Love you;--yes! I have always loved you.Everything about you is dear to me.I can triumph in your triumphs, rejoice at your joy, weep at your sorrows, be ever anxious that all good things may come to you;--but, Arthur, Icannot be your wife.'
'Not though it would make us all happy,--Fletchers and Whartons all alike?'
'Do you think I have not thought it over? Do you think that Ihave forgotten your first letter? Knowing your heart, as I do know it, do you imagine that I have spent a day, an hour, for months past, without asking myself what answer I should make to you if the sweet constancy of your nature should bring you again to me? I have trembled when I have heard your voice.My heart has beat at the sound of your footsteps as though it would burst!
Do you think I have never told myself what I had thrown away.
But it is gone, and it is not now within my reach.'
'It is, it is,' he said, throwing himself on his knees, and twining his arms around her.'
'No;--no;--no;--never.I am disgraced and shamed.I have lain among the pots till I am foul and blackened.Take your arms away.They shall not be defiled,' she said as she sprang to her feet.'You shall not have the thing that he has left.'
'Emily;--it is the only thing in all the world that I crave.'