Page:O'Higgins--From the life.djvu/216

 I'll do anything! I don't care, as long as she doesn't go and— O my God, I'll go crazy!"

And I was afraid that he might. I never saw anything like it. He would talk himself into comparative exhaustion, and then the thought that he was going to lose her would strike him like a physical pang, and he would bury his face in his hands and cry out as if he were contorted with actual pain. And then he would begin to rave again. He had an amazing capacity for suffering. He wore me out with it. I would certainly have given him an opiate if I had had one with me. For a long time I could think of nothing else to do.

I was convinced that she had made up her mind to break with him. It was the only course open to her. He could not marry her; he could not marry any one; and there was no prospect that he would ever be in a position to marry a girl of her traditions. She could not introduce him to her family and its conventions, even as a friend; it would have been torture for both him and her. She was returning to her own people. There was nothing for him to do but to return to his. That was obvious. But it was equally obvious that if he realized what she was doing he would fight it in a scandalous frenzy. He would expose her to everybody as he had already exposed her to me. He was beyond the reach of persuasion, caution, reason of any kind.