human
What is it, Yorke?
gpt
I think,--I do think that I have at last got Lax upon the hip.
human
You are so bloody-minded about Lax.
gpt
What! Are you going to turn round and be merciful? He was her hero, and she certainly felt no mercy towards the murderer of her brother; no mercy towards him who she now thought had planned all the injury done to her father; no mercy towards him who had thrice fired at her beloved. This wretched man had struggled to get the blood of him who was all the world to her; and had been urged on to his black deeds by no thought, by no feeling, that was not in itself as vile as hell! Lax was to her a viper so noxious as to be beyond the pale of all mercy. To crush him beneath the heel of her boot, so as to make an end of him, as of any other poisonous animal, was the best mercy to all other human beings. But she had said the word at the spur of the moment, because she had been instigated by her feelings to gainsay her hero, and to contradict him, so that he might think that he was no hero of hers. She looked at him for the moment, and said nothing, though he held her by the arm.
human
If you say I am to spare him, I will spare him.
gpt
No, she answered,
human
Have I followed this man simply as a duty? Have I lain awake thinking of it till I have given to the pursuit such an amount of energy as no duty can require? Thrice he has endeavoured to kill me, firing at me in the dark, getting at me from behind hedges, as no one who has anything of the spirit of man in his bosom will do when he strives to destroy his enemy. All that has been nothing. I am a policeman in search of him, and am the natural enemy of a murderer. Of course in the ordinary way I would not have spared him; but the ordinary way would have sufficed. Had he escaped me I could have laughed at all that. But he took that poor lad's life! Here he looked sadly into her face, and she could see that there was a tear within his eye.
gpt
That was much, but that was not all. That lad was your brother, him whom you so dearly loved. He shot down the poor child before his father's face, simply because he had said that he would tell the truth. When you wept, when you tore your hair, when you flung yourself in sorrow upon the body, I told myself that either he or I must die. And now you bid me be merciful.
human
My hero, she said;
gpt
It had all come at last,--the double triumph; and there was, he felt, no happier man in all Ireland than he. He thought, at least, that the double battle had been now won. But even yet it was not so.
human
Captain Clayton,
gpt
Why Captain? Why Clayton?
human
My brother Yorke, and she pressed both his hands in hers.
gpt
You can understand that I have been carried away by my feelings, to thank you as a sister may thank a brother.
human
I will not have it, he exclaimed fiercely.
gpt
You are no sister, nor can I ever be your brother. You are my very own now, and for ever.
human
No! she exclaimed, avoiding him with the activity of a young fawn;
gpt
Twenty times you have offended me, and twenty times you must repeat your forgiveness.
human
No, no, it must not be so. I was wrong to say that you were bloody-minded. I cannot tell why I said so. I would not for worlds have you altered in anything;--except, she said,
gpt
But have you told me nothing?
human
I have called you my hero,--and so you are.
gpt
Nay, Edith, it is more than that. It is not for me to remind you, but it is more than that.
human
How am I to tell you why it is more than that? You cannot tell me,
gpt
But, Edith--
human
You cannot tell me. There are moments for some of us the feelings of which can never be whispered. You shall be my hero and my brother if you will; or my hero and my friend; or, if not that, my hero and my enemy.
gpt
Never!
human
No, my enemy you cannot be; for him who is about to revenge my brother's death no name less sweet than dearest friend will suffice. My hero and my dearest friend!