eak, selfish, and hard — able to think of their pain without a pain to Menn Henrikh Mkhitaryan Fotballdrakter myself that would have destroyed all temptation. Oh, what is Lucy feeling now? She believed in me — she loved me — she was so good to me. Think of her ——�
Maggie’s voice was getting choked as she uttered these last words.
“I can’t think of her,� said Stephen, stamping as if with pain. “I can think of nothing Menn Hendrik Bonmann Fotballdrakter but you, Maggie. You demand of a man what is impossible. I felt that once; but I can’t go back to it now. And where is the use of your thinking of it, except to torture me? You can’t save them from pain now; you can only tear yourself from me, and make my life worthless to me. And even if we could go back, and both fulfil our engagements — if that were possible now — it would be hateful, horrible, to think of your ever being Philip’s wife — of your ever being the wife of a man you didn’t love. We have both been rescued from a mistake.�
A deep flush came over Maggie’s face, Menn Clement Diop Fotballdrakter and she couldn’t speak. Stephen saw this. He sat down again, taking her hand in his, and looking at her with passionate entreaty.
“Maggie! Dearest! If you love me, you are mine. Who can have so great a claim on you as I have? My life is bound up in your love. There is nothing in the past that can annul our right to each other; it is the first time we have either of us loved with our whole heart and soul.�
Maggie was still silent for a little while, looking down. Stephen was in a flutter of new hope; he was going to triumph. But she raised her eyes and met his with a glance that was filled with the anguish of regret, not with yielding.
“No, Menn Juan Iturbe Fotballdrakter not with my whole heart and soul, Stephen,� she said with timid resolution. “I have never consented to it with my whole mind. There are memories, and affections, and longings after perfect goodness, that have such a strong hold on me; they would never quit me for long; they would come back Menn Per Mertesacker Fotballdrakter and be pain to me — repentance. I couldn’t live in peace if I put the shadow of a wilful sin between myself and God. I have caused sorrow already — I know — I feel it; but I have never deliberately consented to it; I have never said, ‘They shall suffer, that I may have joy.’ It Menn Christoph Kramer Fotballdrakter has never been my will to marry you; if you were to win consent from the momentary triumph of my feeling for you, you would not have my whole soul. If I could wake back again into the time before yesterday, I would choose to be true to my calmer affections, and live without the joy of love.�
Stephen loosed her hand, and rising impatiently, walked up and down the room in suppressed rage.
“Good God!� he burst out at last, “what a miserable thing a woman’s love is to a man’s! I could commit crimes for you — Menn David Beckham Fotballdrakter and you can balance and choose in that way. But you don’t love me; if you had a tithe of the feeling for me that I have for you, it would be impossible to you to think for a moment of sacrificing me. But it weighs nothing with you that you are robbing me of my life’s happiness |