Page:Rudin - a novel (IA rudinnovel00turgrich).pdf/210

RUDIN ‘Why did you not stop me? Why did you yourself—or did you not reckon upon obstacles? I am ashamed to speak of this—but I see it is all over now.’

‘You must be calm, Natalya Alexyevna,’ Rudin was beginning; ‘we must think together what means’

‘You have so often talked of self-sacrifice,’ she broke in, ‘but do you know, if you had said to me to-day at once, “I love you, but I cannot marry you, I will not answer for the future, give me your hand and come with me”—do you know, I would have come with you; do you know, I would have risked everything? But there’s all the difference between word and deed, and you were afraid now, just as you were afraid the day before yesterday at dinner of Volintsev.’

The colour rushed to Rudin’s face. Natalya’s unexpected energy had astounded him; but her last words wounded his vanity.

‘You are too angry now, Natalya Alexyevna,’ he began; ‘you cannot realise how bitterly you wound me. I hope that in time you will do me justice; you will understand what it has cost 172