Page:Mehalah 1920.djvu/281

Rh "Elijah," she said, "I must be candid with you. When I think of what, by your own confession, you have done to him whom I loved more than all the world" He raised his hammer and brought it down on the link, cutting it in half, and sending one fiery half across the smithy. "When I think of what you have done to him, I feel that I do hate you, and that I have every cause and right to hate you. I could forgive everything else. I have turned over in my mind all that you have done to me, the cruel way in which you worked till you had brought me within your power, the heartless way in which you got my good name to be evil spoken of, and drove me out of self-defence to take your hand before the altar of God. I have thought of all this, and I feel that my act—unintentional though it was—yet my act, which has blinded you, has expiated all those offences. You have wronged me, and I have wronged you. I have ruined your life, but you have also ruined mine. We are quits so far. You have my frank forgiveness. I blot out all the past, as far as it concerns me, from my memory. It shall no more rankle in my heart. You have shown me a generous forgiveness of my misdeed, and I would imitate you. But what you did to George is not to be expiated. You sinned against him more terribly, more wickedly than against me, and he alone can pardon you. That I cannot forgive; and for that crime I must still hate you."

He stood trembling—a strange weakness came over him—he was not angry, savage, morose; he seemed a prey to fear and uncertainty.

"Tell me, tell me truly. Glory! Does that alone prevent you from loving me? Had I never done what I said I had done, could you love me?"

"I do not say that," she replied. "As I have told you before, I gave my heart once for all to George De Witt. I never could love you with my fresh full heart, as a woman should love her husband, but I feel that I could like you as a friend. I do pity you. God knows how bitterly I have suffered from remorse for what I did unwittingly, and how sincere I am in my repentance and desire to deal tenderly and truly by you, Elijah. I feel sometimes as