'It hurts me more than the other,' he replied.
'Nay, I would not hurt you,--not at this moment. Sometimes I feel that I could tear you limb from limb, so great is my disappointment, so ungovernable my rage! Why,--why should I be such a victim? Why should life be an utter blank to me, while you have everything before you? There, you have seen them all. Which will you have?'
'I cannot now take that other as the expression of your mind.'
'But it will be when you have left me;--and was when you were with me at the sea-side. And it was so I felt when I got your first letter in San Francisco. Why should you kneel there? You do not love me. A man should kneel to a woman for love, not for pardon.' But though she spoke thus, she put her hand upon his forehead, and pushed back his hair, and looked into his face. 'I wonder whether that other woman loves you. I do not want an answer, Paul. I suppose you had better go.' She took his hand and pressed it to her breast. 'Tell me one thing. When you spoke of--compensation, did you mean--money?'
'No; indeed no.'
'I hope not,--I hope not that. Well, there;--go. You shall be troubled no more with Winifred Hurtle.' She took the sheet of paper which contained the threat of the horsewhip and tore it into scraps.
'And am I to keep the other?' he asked.
'No. For what purpose would you have it? To prove my weakness? That also shall be destroyed.' But she took it and restored it to her pocket-book.
'Good-bye, my friend,' he said.
'Nay! This parting will not bear a farewell. Go, and let there be no other word spoken.' And so he went.
As soon as the front door was closed behind him she rang the bell and begged Ruby to ask Mrs Pipkin to come to her. 'Mrs Pipkin,' she said, as soon as the woman had entered the room; 'everything is over between me and Mr Montague.' She was standing upright in the middle of the room, and as she spoke there was a smile on her face.
'Lord 'a mercy,' said Mrs Pipkin, holding up both her hands.
'As I have told you that I was to be married to him, I think it right now to tell you that I'm not going to be married to him.'
'And why not?--and he such a nice young man,--and quiet too.'