"What I
said I do not wish to be forgotten. Only--just at that moment, it
sounded natural enough--and today--I think that I am a little
ashamed."
He rose from his seat. Her eyes leaped up to his expectantly, and the
color streamed into her cheeks. But he only stood by her side. He did
nothing to meet the half-proffered embrace.
"Dear Lady Emily," he said, "all the kind things that you said were
spoken to a stranger. You did not know me. I did not mean anyone to
know me. It is you who have commanded the truth. You must have it. I
am not the person I seem to be. I am not the person to whom words such
as yours should have been spoken. Even my name is an assumed one. I
should prefer to leave it at that--if you are content."
"I am not content," she answered quietly; "I must hear more."
He bowed.
"I am a man," he said, "who spent ten years in prison, the ten best
years of my life. A woman sent me there--a woman swore my liberty away
to save her reputation. I was never of a forgiving disposition, I was
never an amiably disposed person. I want you to understand this. Any
of the ordinary good qualities with which the average man may be
endowed, and which I may have possessed, are as dead in me as hell
fire could burn them. You have spoken of me as of a man who failed to
find a sufficient object in life. You were wrong. I have an object,
and I do my best to live up to it. I hate the whole world of men and
women who laughed their way through life whilst I suffered--tortures.
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