"Kill me, Harry!" she sobbed wildly, clinging to him. "Kill me! don't speak to me like this!—don't leave me! Oh, my God! don't, don't despise me so utterly! Hate me—curse me—strike me—do anything, but don't leave me as if I were some low thing, unfit for your touch,—I know I am, but oh, Harry! . . ." She clung to him more closely. "If you leave me I will not live,—I cannot! Have you no pity? Why would you throw me back alone—all, all alone, to die of your contempt and my shame!"
And she bowed her head in an agony of tears.
He looked down upon her a moment in silence.
"Your shame!" he murmured. "My wife—"
Then he raised her in his arms and drew her with a strange hesitation of touch, to his breast, as though she were some sick or wounded child, and watched her as she lay there weeping, her face hidden, her whole frame trembling in his embrace.
"Poor soul!" he whispered, more to himself than to her. "Poor frail woman! Hush, hush, Clara! The past is past! I'll make you no more reproaches. I—I can't hurt you, because I once so loved you—but now—now,—what is there left for me to do, but to leave you? You'll be happier so—you'll have perfect liberty—you needn't even think of me—unless, perhaps, as one dead and buried long ago—"
She raised herself in his arms and looked at him piteously.
"Won't you give me a chance?" she sobbed. "Not one? If I had but known you better—if I had understood oh, I've been vile, wicked, deceitful—but I'm not happy, Harry—I've never been happy since I wronged you! Won't you give me one little hope that I may win your love again,—no, not your love, but your pity? Oh, Harry, have I lost all—all—"
Her voice broke—she could say no more.
He stroked her hair gently. "You speak on impulse just now, Clara," he said gravely yet tenderly. "You can't know your own strength or weakness. God forbid that I should judge you harshly! As you wish it, I will not leave you yet. I'll wait. Whether we part or remain together, shall be decided by your own actions, your own looks, your own words. You understand, Clara? You know my feelings. I'm content for the present to place my fate in your hands." He smiled rather sadly. "But for love, Clara—I fear nothing can be done to warm to life this poor perished love of ours. We can, perhaps, take hands and watch its corpse patiently together and say how sorry we are it is dead—such penitence comes always too late!"