Had she in any way grown less noble in his eyes,
by those very things which she regarded as help and strengthening?
Did he perchance think she had too readily accepted ease when it was
offered her, sacrificing the independence which he most regarded? If
so, all the more would he shrink from losing for her his own
independence.
She imagined herself wedded to him; at liberty to stand before him
and confess all the thoughts which now consumed her in the silence
of vain longing. "Why did I break free from the fetters of a
shameful life? Because I loved, and loved _you_. What gave me the
strength to pass from idle luxury, poisoning the energies of the
soul, to that life of lonely toil and misery? My love, and my love
for _you_. I kept apart from you then; I would not even let you know
what I was enduring; only because you had spoken a hasty,
thoughtless word to me, which showed me with terrible distinctness
the meaning of all I had escaped, and filled me with a determination
to prove to myself that I had not lost all my better nature, that
there was still enough of purity in my being to save me finally.
What was it that afflicted me with agony beyond all words when I was
made the victim of a cruel and base accusation? Not the fear of its
consequences; only the dread lest _you_ should believe me guilty,
and no longer deem me worthy of a thought.
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