"Wrong, is it," he cried savagely, "and whose fault is it that I am in this wrong business?"
"It is mine," she said, "mine! I own it. It was I who led you astray. How often and how bitterly have I regretted it! How strange it is, that love like mine could ever have done you harm. I do not understand this. I cannot see how love can do harm. I have loved you so truly and so deeply, and I would give my life for you, and yet this love of mine has been the cause of all your trouble! It would seem that love ought to bless us. Would you not think so?"
He sat silent; any one but Pepeeta could have seen that this silence would soon be broken by an explosion.
"Speak to me, my love!" she pleaded, "speak to me. I confess that I have wronged you. But is there not something that I can do to make you happy? Surely a wrong like this cannot be irreparable. Tell me something that I can do to make you happy!"
With a violent and convulsive effort, he pushed her away and exclaimed fiercely, "Leave me! Do not touch me! I hate you!"
"Hate me?" she cried, "hate me? Oh! David. You cannot mean it. You cannot mean that you hate me?"
"But I do!" he exclaimed bitterly. "I hate you. You have ruined me, and now you confess it. From the time that I first saw you I have never had a moment's peace. Why did you ever cross my path? Could you not have left me alone in my happiness and innocence? Look at me now. See what you have brought me to. I am ruined! But I am not alone. You have pulled yourself down with me. What will you say when I tell you that you are involved in a crime that must drag us both to hell?"
"A crime?" she cried, clasping her hands in terror.
"Yes, a crime. You need not look so innocent. You are as guilty as I, or at least you are as deeply involved. We are bound together in misery. We are doomed."
"Doomed! Doomed! What do you mean? Tell me, I implore you--- do not speak in riddles!"
"Tell you? Do you wish to know? Are you in earnest? Then I will! You are not my wife! There! It is out at last!"
Pepeeta sprang to her feet and stood staring at him in horror.
"No, not my wife," he said, repeating the bitter truth. "I deceived you. You were married to your beast of a husband lawfully enough; but as you would not leave him willingly, I determined that you should leave him any way. And so I bribed the justice to deceive you."