Part 34 (2/2)
”We'll see that.”
”But they will. And then?”
”Why should one meet disaster half way?”
”Stephen!” she said; ”what will happen to you when I am not here to make you look at things? Because I shan't be here. Not within reach of you.... There are times when I feel like a mother to you. Never more than now....”
And then with rapid touches she began to picture the disaster before me. She pictured the Court and our ineffectual denials, she made me realize the storm of hostility that was bound to burst over us. ”And think of me,” she said. ”Stripped I shall be and outcast.”
”Not while I live!”
”But what can you do for me? You will have Rachel. How can you stand by me? You can't be cruel to Rachel. You know you can't be cruel to Rachel.
Look me in the face, Stephen; tell me. Yes.... Then how can you stand by me?”
”Somehow!” I cried foolishly and stopped.
”They'll use me to break your back with costs and damages. There'll be those children of yours to think of....”
”My G.o.d!” I cried aloud. ”Why do you torment me? Haven't I thought enough of those things?... Haven't I seen the ruin and the shame, the hopeless trap, men's trust in me gone, my work scattered and ended again, my children growing up to hear this and that exaggeration of our story. And you----. All the bravery of your life scattered and wasted.
The thing will pursue us all, cling to us. It will be all the rest of our lives for us....”
I covered my face with my hands.
When I looked up, her face was white and still, and full of a strange tenderness. ”I wouldn't have you, Stephen--I wouldn't have you be cruel to Rachel.... I just wanted to know--something.... But we're wandering.
We're talking nonsense. Because as I said, there need be no divorce.
There will be no divorce at all. That's what I came to tell you. I shall have to pay--in a way, Stephen.... Not impossibly. Don't think it is anything impossible....”
Then she bit her lips and sat still....
”My dear,” I whispered, ”if we had taken one another at the beginning....”
But she went on with her own thoughts.
”You love those little children of yours,” she said. ”And that trusting girl-wife.... Of course you love them. They're yours. Oh! they're so deeply--yours.... Yours....”
”Oh my dear! don't torture me! I do love them. But I love you too.”
”No,” she said, ”not as you do them.”
I made a movement of protest.
”No,” she said, whitely radiant with a serenity I had never seen before in her face. ”You love me with your brain. With your soul if you like. I _know_, my poor bleeding Stephen!--Aren't those tears there? Don't mind my seeing them, Stephen.... Poor dear! Poor dear!.... You love _them_ with your inmost heart. Why should you mind that I see you do?... All my life I've been wrong, Stephen, and now I know too late. It's the things we own we love, the things we buy with our lives.... Always I have been hard, I've been a little hard.... Stephen, my dear, I loved you, always I have loved you, and always I have tried to keep myself.... It's too late.... I don't know why I am talking like this.... But you see I can make a bargain now--it's not an impossible bargain--and save you and save your wife and save your children----”
”But how?” I said, still doubting.
”Never mind how, Stephen. Don't ask me how now. Nothing very difficult.
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