Both these things have happened to me, and there
is no choice left me but to fly in the night. Of course I had expected
you to fall in love with me, and had fancied you so much, after seeing
you the first time, as to feel that it would be very fine to have you for
a lover, and even for a husband. But that was not really love at all. I
think if you could understand even a little what dismay came over me when
I first realized that my heart was yours, you would almost pity me. After
that, to deceive you was torture to me, and yet, to tell you the truth
would have been to make you loathe me like a snake. Oh, Paul! think of
what I have suffered these past weeks, and pity me a little!
"You will understand now why it was that I could not bear to have the
circumstances of the fraud we had practised on you alluded to in my
presence, and why, after the first few days, I never spoke of them
myself.
"When father, whom you know as Dr. Hull, came that day to see how the
plot was succeeding, I thought I should die with shame. He tried to catch
my eye, and to get a chance to speak with me, but I avoided him.
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