She was no wife to me. For years our marriage has been a mockery, and it was best to put an end to it. Now I am free.
It's no use beating about the bush. Things have gone too far, and I'm too much in earnest. She loves your husband. It is common talk. I've shut my eyes as long as possible, and you've shut yours; but we both know the truth.
Back to the woman you promised to protect, and whom you left when she most needed you.
That love won't last long. Love can't live on nothing!
Then what do you propose? To sacrifice your life to an idea--to be true to a phantom? You owe no faith to one who is unfaithful. Think! You are young--your real life lies before you--would you end it before it's begun? A widow before you're a wife?
I am a wife, and I shall not forget it. If I have lost my husband's love, at least I'll save his honour. A public scandal mayn't mean much to _you,_ but it means your wife's ruin--it means Gerald's. Gerald shall not be ruined! You _shall_ go back to her!
Challenge or not, you _shall!_ It is ignoble to desert her so! You are a coward to make love to me! If her love was unworthy, what is yours? Is it for you to cast a stone at her? See! Read your letters! [_Producing a packet._] Letters to me--love-letters! Letters to a woman you didn't respect in her grief and persecuted in her loneliness--a woman who would have none of you--who tells you to your face you're not a man! Your love's an insult! take the thing away!
No! but I want to make you realize you need more mercy than you show to her. These letters were written for my eye alone; to open them was to promise secrecy.
Margery, everything you say and do makes it more hard to go away from you.
I don't know yet. I don't know if I'm welcome.
[_Playing with the packet, mechanically._
That rests with you. You say, she's been no wife to you; but have you been a husband to her?
Why do you take her part? She's injured you enough.
Yes; she _has_ injured me; but now I know what it is to live without love, and to want it, I can pardon her. Can't you? [_Goes to him and gives him both her hands._] Forgive her, Captain Sylvester--freely as I do you--give her the love that you have offered me--and you will find your wife's a woman just as much as I am.