"Forgive you!" he replied. "No; years hence, when we meet again, I may, but not now."
"Years hence? Are you going away, then? Oh! you cannot be so cruel!"
"In another month I shall leave England, perhaps for ever,--a broken-hearted wretch, with an aimless, hopeless existence. All this you have driven me to, and yet you ask me to forgive you. For her sake--hers, of whom I dare not trust myself to speak--I will not, cannot forgive you!"
The bitterness of his grief was over; the first burst was past; and he spoke calmer now, although his every word, the tone even of his voice, sank like ice into Frances' soul, convincing her how hopelessly she loved.
"Oh! say not so, Charles," she cried, "or you will crush me utterly. See,--see how I must love you to kneel here, and to humble my pride so entirely as to tell you I--I love you."
"Love! Does love break the heart of the loved one as you have broken mine? Call you such a deadly feeling as this, love? Say, rather, that you hate me."
"No, no; never! Whatever you do, whatever you say, I shall love you still,--love you for ever!"
"Give me your hate," he replied, "I would rather have that."
But Frances only answered by sobs and wringing her hands.
"If," he continued, "you have wrecked my happiness and hers through love of me, I wish to God you had hated me!"
"I could not," sobbed Frances, utterly overcome. "You--you won my love two years ago. Yes! you loved me then."
"Never!" he cried vehemently, almost savagely. "Never! I swear it!"
"Cruel? Yes; what else do you deserve? Had you never told me that falsehood--never deceived me I--I might; but it is too late--all too late. And yet how I love her, love her to madness, and she the--the wife of another!" and he groaned and clenched his hands together, until the nails seemed buried in the very flesh, in utter anguish at the thought.
"Don't talk of her so, Charles, you will break my heart. Have some pity."
"Pity! I have none. What had you for either her or me. I tell you I have no mercy, no pity, only scorn and--and--" he would have said hate, but somehow the word would not come to his lips, as he looked at the bent, bowed figure kneeling so humbly before him.
"Oh! don't go! don't go, Charles. Say one, only one kind word," cried Frances, imploringly, as he turned again to leave her.