The blood surged up to my head as I listened. How could she deliberately suggest such things?
Did she really care for me or value our love at all?
In any case, for no reason on earth would I let her go.
"No, I shall not, certainly not, consent to anything so foolish," I said coldly; "I can't think how you can suggest or think such a thing is possible."
Viola was silent for a moment. Then she said:
"When I come back I would tell you everything, and you would see I was right."
"I don't know that you ever would come back," I said, with sudden irrepressible anger.
"If you go away I might want you to stay away. You talk as if our emotions and passions were mere blocks of wood we could take up and lay down as we pleased, put away in a box for a time, and then bring them out again to play with. It's absurd. You talk of going away and driving me to another woman, and then my coming back to you, as if it was just a simple matter of our own will. Once we separate and allow our lives to become entangled with other lives we cannot say what will happen. We might never come together again."
"I know," she said in a low tone. "I have thought of all that. But if I stay there will be a separation all the same, and perhaps something worse."
"What do you mean by a separation?" I demanded hotly.
"Well, I cannot respond to you any more as I used. I must have rest for a time," she answered in a low tone.
I looked at her closely, and it struck me again how delicate she looked. She was thinner, too, than she had been. Her delicate, almost transparent hand shook as it rested on the chair arm.
The colour rushed burning to my face as I leant over her.
"But, darling girl, if you want more rest you have only to say so. Perhaps I have been thoughtless and selfish. If so, we must alter things. But there is no need to separate, to go away from me for that."
"No, I know," returned Viola in a very tender tone; "I should not for that alone. You are always most good. It is not that only. There are other reasons why I would rather be away from you until we can live together again as we have done."
"And you propose to go away, and suggest my living with another woman till you come back?" I said incredulously; dismay and apprehension and anger all struggling together within me for expression.