We must wear this
weight of living death till that good Lord that makes such laws shall
send us death in mercy. Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years of suffering:
that might almost satisfy Him, one would think. Pauline! you and I are
to say good-bye to-night. Good-bye! People talk of it as a cruel word.
Think of it: if it were but for a year, a year with hope at the end of
it to keep our hearts alive, it would be terrible, and we should need be
brave. The tears that lovers shed over a year apart; the days that have
got to come and go, how weary. The nights--the nights that sleep flies
off from, and that memory reigns over. Count them--over three hundred
come in every year. One, you think while it is passing, is enough to
kill you: one such night of restless torture, and how many shall we
multiply our three hundred by? We are young, Pauline. You are a child, a
very child. I am in the very flush and strength of manhood. There is
half a century of suffering in me yet: this frame, this brain, will
stand the wear of the hard years to come but too, too well. There is no
hope of death. There is no hope in life. That star has set. Good God!
And that makes hell--why should I wait for it--it cannot be worse there
than here. Don't listen to me--it will not be as hard for you--you are
so young--you have no sins to torture you--only a little love to conquer
and forget. You will marry a man who lives for you, and who is patient
and will wait till this is over. Ah, no: by Heaven! I can't quite stand
it yet. Pauline, you never loved him, did you--never blushed for
him--never listened for his coming with your lips apart and your heart
fluttering, as I have seen you listen when you thought that I was
coming? No, I know you never loved him: I know you have loved me
alone--me--who ought to have forbidden you. Forgive--forgive--forgive
me."

A passion of tears had come to my relief, and I shook from head to foot
with sobs. I cannot feel ashamed when I remember that he held me for one
moment in his arms. He had been to me till that shock, strength, truth,
justice: _the man I loved_. How could I in one instant know him by his
sin alone, and undo all my trust? I knew only this, that it was for the
last time, and that my heart was broken.

I forgave him--that was an idle form; in my great love I never felt that
there was anything to be forgiven, except the wrong that fate had done
me, in making my love so hopeless. He told me to forget him; that