“I did injure you,” said she, sharply.
“If you ever injured me, I forgave you freely.”
“I did injure you—” As she spoke she rose again from her seat, showing how impossible to her was that tranquillity which she had attempted to maintain. “I did injure you, but the injury came to you early in life, and sat lightly on you. Within a few months you had learned to love this young lady at the place you went to—the first young lady you saw! I had not done you much harm, Harry. But that which you have done me cannot be undone.”
“Julia,” he said, coming up to her.
“No; not Julia. When you were here before I asked you to call me so, hoping, longing, believing—doing more, so much more than I could have done, but that I thought my love might now be of service to you. You do not think that I had heard of this then?”
“Oh, no.”
“No. It is odd that I should not have known it, as I now hear that she was at my sister’s house; but all others have not been as silent as you have been. We are quits, Harry; that is all that I have to say. We are quits now.”
“I have intended to be true to you;—to you and to her.”
“Were you true when you acted as you did the other night?” He could not explain to her how greatly he had been tempted. “Were you true when you held me in your arms as that woman came in? Had you not made me think that I might glory in loving you, and that I might show her that I scorned her when she thought to promise me her secrecy;—her secrecy, as though I were ashamed of what she had seen. I was not ashamed—not then. Had all the world known it, I should not have been ashamed. ‘I have loved him long,’ I should have said, ‘and him only. He is to be my husband, and now at last I need not be ashamed.’ ” So much she spoke, standing up, looking at him with firm face, and uttering her syllables with a quick clear voice; but at the last word there came a quiver in her tone, and the strength of her countenance quailed, and there was a tear which made dim her eye, and she knew that she could no longer stand before him. She endeavoured to seat herself with composure; but the attempt failed, and as she fell back upon the sofa he just heard the sob which had cost her so great and vain an effort to restrain. In an instant he was kneeling at her feet, and grasping at the hand with which she was hiding her face. “Julia,” he said, “look at me; let us at any rate understand each other at last.”
“No, Harry; there must be no more such knowledge—no more such understanding. You must go from me, and come here no more. Had it not been for that other night, I would still have endeavoured to regard you as a friend. But I have no right to such friendship. I have sinned and gone astray, and am a thing vile and polluted. I sold myself, as a beast is sold, and men have treated me as I treated myself.”
“Have I treated you so?”
“Yes, Harry; you, you. How did you treat me when you took me in your arms and kissed me—knowing, knowing that I was not to be your wife? O God, I have sinned. I have sinned, and I am punished.”
“No, no,” said he, rising from his knees, “it was not as you say.”
“Then how was it, sir? Is it thus that you treat other women;—your friends, those to whom you declare friendship? What did you mean me to think?”
“That I loved you.”
“Yes; with a love that should complete my disgrace—that should finish my degradation. But I had not heard of this Florence Burton; and, Harry, that night I was so happy in my bed. And in that next week when you were down there for that sad ceremony, I was happy here, happy and proud. Yes, Harry, I was so proud when I thought that you still loved me—loved me in spite of my past sin, that I almost forgot that I was polluted. You have made me remember it, and I shall not forget it again.”
It would have been better for him had he gone away at once. Now he was sitting in a chair, sobbing violently, and pressing away the tears from his cheeks with his hands. How could he make her understand that he had intended no insult when he embraced her? Was it not incumbent on him to tell her that the wrong he then did was done to Florence Burton, and not to her? But his agony was too much for him at present, and he could find no words in which to speak to her.
“I said to myself that you would come when the funeral was over, and I wept for poor Hermy as I thought that my lot was so much happier than hers. But people have what they deserve, and Hermy, who has done no such wrong as I have done, is not crushed as I am crushed. It was just, Harry, that the punishment should come from you, but it has come very heavily.”
“Julia, it was not meant to be so.”
“Well; we will let that pass. I cannot unsay, Harry, all that I have said;—all that I did not say, but which you must have thought and known when you were here last. I cannot bid you believe that I do not—love you.”
“Not more tenderly or truly than I love you.”
“Nay, Harry, your love to me can be neither true nor tender—nor will I permit it to be offered to me. You do not think I would rob that girl of what is hers. Mine for you may be both tender
