Part 36 (2/2)
He never forgot how she sprang away from him, her colorless face raised to his.
”Part, Norman!” she cried. ”We cannot part now; I am your wife!”
”I know it; but we must part.”
”Part!” repeated the girl. ”We cannot; the tie that binds us cannot be sundered so easily.”
”My poor Madaline, it must be.”
She caught his hand in hers.
”You are jesting, Norman. We cannot be separated--we are one. Do you forget the words--'for better for worse,' 'till death us do part?'--You frighten me!” And she shrank from him with a terrible shudder.
”It must be as I have said,” declared the unhappy man. ”I have been deceived--so have you. We have to suffer for another's sin.”
”We may suffer,” she said, dully, ”but we cannot part. You cannot send me away from you.”
”I must,” he persisted. ”Darling, I speak with deepest love and pity, yet with unwavering firmness. You cannot think that, with that terrible stain resting on you, you can take your place here.”
”But I am your wife!” she cried, in wild terror.
”You are my wife,” he returned, with quivering lips; ”but you must remain so in name only.” He paused abruptly, for it seemed to him that the words burned his lips as they pa.s.sed them. ”My wife,” he muttered, ”in name only.”
With a deep sob she stretched out her arms. ”But I love you, Norman--you must not send me away! I love you--I shall die if I have to leave you!”
The words seemed to linger on her lips.
”My darling,” he said, gently, ”it is even harder for me than for you.”
”No, no,” she cried, ”for I love you so dearly, Norman--better than my life! Darling, my whole heart went out to you long ago--you cannot give it back to me.”
”If it kills you and myself too,” he declared, hoa.r.s.ely, ”I must send you away.”
”Send me away? Oh, no, Norman, not away! Let me stay with you, husband, darling. We were married only this morning My place is here by your side--I cannot go.”
Looking away from her, with those pa.s.sionate accents still ringing in his ears, his only answer was:
”Family honor demands it.”
”Norman,” she implored, ”listen to me, dear! Do not send me away from you. I will be so good, so devoted. I will fulfill my duties so well, I will bear myself so worthily that no one shall remember anything against me; they shall forget my unhappy birth, and think only that you have chosen well. Oh, Norman, be merciful to me! Leaving you would be a living death!”
”You cannot suffer more than I do,” he said--”and I would give my life to save you pain; but, my darling, I cannot be so false to the traditions of my race, so false to the honor of my house, so untrue to my ancestors and to myself, as to ask you to stay here. There has never been a blot on our name. The annals of our family are pure and stainless. I could not ask you to remain here and treat you as my wife, even to save my life!”
”I have done no wrong, Norman; why should you punish me so cruelly?”
”No, my darling, you have done no wrong--and the punishment is more mine than yours. I lose the wife whom I love most dearly--I lose my all.”
”And what do I lose?” she moaned.
”Not so much as I do, because you are the fairest and sweetest of women.
You shall live in all honor, Madaline. You shall never suffer social degradation, darling--the whole world shall know that I hold you blameless; but you can be my wife in name only.”
She was silent for a few minutes, and then she held out her arms to him again.
<script>