human
If you have tampered with my sister's heart, better for you that you were dead!
gpt
Fool!--cur!--liar!--she is as pure as God's sunlight.
human
You need not tell me that,
gpt
Fool!--fool!
human
And fool I; thrice fool! Who am I, to rail on him? Oh God! what have I done?
gpt
What have you done?
human
Nothing that you or man can blame, Miss St. Just! Can you dream that, sinful as I am, I could ever harbour a thought toward her of which I should be ashamed before the angels of God?
gpt
Oh, my Saint Père! and she held out both her hands.
human
Forgive me, if-- only for a moment--
gpt
I am not your Saint Père, nor any one's! I am a poor, weak, conceited, miserable man, who by his accursed impertinence has broken the heart of the being whom he loves best on earth.
human
How is she? Tell me only that, this once! Has it killed her? Does she hate him?
gpt
Adores him more than ever. Oh, Major Campbell! it is too piteous, too piteous.
human
Thank God! yes, thank God! So it should be. Let her love him to the last, and win her martyr's crown! Now, Valencia St. Just, sit down, if but for five minutes; and listen, once for all, to the last words, perhaps, you will ever hear me speak; unless she wants you--?
gpt
No, no! Tell me all, Saint Père! said Valencia,
human
as the new thought of Headley, and that walk, came over her.
gpt
Tell me all at once, while I have wits left to comprehend.
human
Miss St. Just, said he, in a clear calm voice,
gpt
No; I recollect nothing of it.
human
I never forgot it. I threw up all my prospects, and went into the Line. Whether I won honour there or not I need not tell you. I came back to England years after, not unworthy, as I fancied, to look your sister in the face as an equal. I found her married.
gpt
Good. Her choice was sure to be a worthy one, and that was enough for me. You need not doubt that I kept my secret then more sacredly than ever. I returned to India, and tried to die. I dared not kill myself, for I was a soldier and a Christian, and belonged to God and my Queen. The Sikhs would not kill me, do what I would to help them. Then I threw myself into science, that I might stifle passion; and I stifled it. I fancied myself cured, and I was cured; and I returned to England again. I loved your brother for her sake; I loved you at first for her sake, then for your own. But I presumed upon my cure; I accepted your brother's invitation; I caught at the opportunity of seeing her again-- happy--as I fancied; and of proving to myself my own soundness. I considered myself a sort of Melchisedek, neither young nor old, without passions, without purpose on earth--a fakeer who had licence to do and to dare what others might not. But I kept my secret proudly inviolate. I do not believe at this moment she dreams that--Do you?
human
She does not.
gpt
Thank God! I was a most conceited fool, puffed up with spiritual pride, tempting God needlessly. I went, I saw her. Heaven is my witness, that as far as passion goes, my heart is as pure as yours: but I found that I still cared more for her than for any being on earth: and I found too the sort of man upon whom--God forgive me! I must not talk of that--I despised him, hated him, pretended to teach him his duty, by behaving better to her than he did--the spiritual coxcomb that I was! What business had I with it? Why not have left all to God and her good sense? The devil tempted me to-day, in the shape of an angel of courtesy and chivalry; and here the end is come. I must find that man, Miss St. Just, if I travel the world in search of him. I must ask his pardon frankly, humbly, for my impertinence. Perhaps so I may bring him back to her, and not die with a curse on my head for having parted those whom God has joined. And then to the old fighting-trade once more--the only one, I believe, I really understand; and see whether a Russian bullet will not fly straighter than a clumsy Sikh's.