Page:Comin' Thro' the Rye (1898).djvu/469

Rh "You will?" she cries, sitting up; "you are not pretending!"

"Why should I?" I ask, steadily; are you?"

"No!" she says, dropping her eyes, "only I did not think any woman living could be so noble. And you will speak to me when I meet you; you will come to see me?"

"We are not likely to meet, and I will not come to see you. Friends we cannot be—no, nor acquaintances."

"Then your forgiveness is an empty form of words," she says, falling back; "I need not have praised you for it. Shall I tell you why you extend to me the form of forgiveness and not the spirit?" she asks, lifting herself upon her elbow. "Shall I tell you why you will not come here? Because you are afraid of your own heart."

There is an instant's silence, in which Satan whispers, "What! Acknowledge your own weakness and his?" and my good angel cries, "Confess it, and be not led into temptation;" then I answer coldly, "You are mistaken, Mrs. Vasher; I am no more likely to forget that he is your husband, than he is to forget what is due to me. No, I am not afraid to meet him."

"Then sometimes, not often perhaps, but sometimes you will come here. You will not keep up an open enmity?"

"Sometimes!" I say, against my better instincts; then looking suddenly into her face, "Silvia, you are quite certain that whatever of sin and subterfuge there has been in your past, you now mean fairly and honestly by me and your husband? Is there any fresh plotting of wickedness in your heart?"

"Does a dying woman weave plots?" she asks bitterly, as she turns away her eyes from mine. "Is there any further harm that I can work you, him, or myself? Your heart is not a soft one, Helen Adair."

For a minute I stand musing, and the child pulls at my dress, he is tired of the quiet room, and wants to go away.