He seemed to mean
them to sting, to cut, to stab. It was hard not to cry out with the pain
of hearing them. All that I understood was that he meant to wrench himself
from me with a force that should make the breach impassable. This I felt,
though still his eyes gave the lie to his words; his eyes that said I was
dear as life to him.
"Don't think I blame you for the inevitable," he went on. "You do not
know, and I pray God you may never understand, how contemptible I have
been. And don't think me a fool; I'm not crying for the moon, nor dreaming
that a glorious creature like you--ah, you're as far above me as the stars
above the sea--to you I have been only--"
"Don't speak like that!" I cried. White-faced, I stared at him,
tremblingly, pleadingly. There was a cloud in my brain that seemed to be
coming down; it threatened to smother me--but I held fast to my courage.
It was life itself for which I was fighting.
"You have--you are--"
The truth was at my lips, but he interrupted:--
"I know you have reason to hate me, for I have done you wrong. Because of
my folly, your place here is not what it was; and you love Burke, whom I
have wronged, as I love Milly, whom I have estranged.
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