`You are sorry that I saw you, no doubt,' I answered, coldly.
`If you had not seen me,' he muttered, fixing his eyes on the carpet, `it would have done no harm.'
My heart felt ready to burst; but I resolutely swallowed back my emotion, and answered calmly, `You think not?'
`No,' replied he, boldly. `After all, what have I done? It's nothing--except as you choose to make it a subject of accusation and distress.'
`What would Lord Lowborough, your friend, think, if he knew all? or what would you yourself think, if he or any other bad acted the same part to me, throughout, as you have to Annabella?'
`I would blow his brains out.'
`Well then, Arthur, how can you call it nothing--an offence for which you would think yourself justified in blowing another man's brains out? Is it nothing to trifle with your friend's feelings and mine--to endeavour to steal a woman's affections from her husband--what he values more than his gold, and therefore what it is more dishonest to take? Are the marriage vows a jest; and is it nothing to make it your sport to break them, and to tempt another to do the same? Can I love a man that does such things, and coolly maintains it is nothing?'
`You are breaking your marriage vows yourself,' said he, indignantly rising and pacing to and fro. `You promised to honour and obey me, and now you attempt to hector over me, and threaten and accuse me and call me worse than a highwayman, If it were not for your situation, Helen, I would not submit to it so tamely. I won't be dictated to by a woman, though she be my wife.'
`What will you do then? Will you go on till I hate you; and then accuse me of breaking my vows?'
He was silent a moment, and then replied,--`You never will hate me.' Returning and resuming his former position at my feet, he repeated more vehemently--`You cannot hate me, as long as I love you.'
`But how can I believe that you love me, if you continue to act in this way? Just imagine yourself in my place: would you think I loved you, if I did so? Would you believe my protestations, and honour and trust me under such circumstances?'
`The cases are different,' he replied. `It is a woman's nature to be constant--to love one and one only, blindly, tenderly, and for ever--bless them, dear creatures! and you above them all--but you must have some commiseration for us, Helen; you must give us a little more licence, for as Shakespeare has it--"However we do praise ourselves, Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, More longing, wavering, sooner lost and won Than women's are." `Do you mean by that, that your fancies are lost to me, and won by Lady Lowborough?'
`No; Heaven is my witness that I think her mere dust and ashes in comparison with you,--and shall continue to think so, unless you drive me from you by too much severity. She is a daughter of earth; you are an angel of heaven; only be not too austere in your divinity, and remember that I am a poor, fallible mortal. Come now, Helen; won't you forgive me?' he said, gently taking my hand, and looking up with an innocent smile.
`If I do, you will repeat the offence.'
`I swear by--'
`Don't swear; I'll believe your word as well as your oath. I wish I could have confidence in either.'
`Try me then, Helen: only trust and pardon me this once, and you shall see! Come, I am in hell's torments till you speak the word.'