human
Tell me now, Maude, and fear not; for nothing you can say will convince me you are not as pure and unsullied as the angels themselves. What is this terrible secret, sweetest love?
gpt
Oh, my dear lord, every word you speak, every caress you give me, makes my revelation the harder! she passionately cried.
human
And yet it must be made, even though you should spurn me from you in loathing after. Listen, my lord. You think me Lady Maude Percy?
gpt
Yes, dear love.
human
That is not my name!
gpt
What, Maude?
human
That is not my name. No; I am not mad, Lord Villiers, though you look as if you thought so. I have been mad once! You and all the world are deceived. I am not what I seem.
gpt
What, in Heaven's name do you mean? What then are you?
human
I was a wife! I have been a mother! I am a widow!
gpt
Maude!
human
You recoil from me in horror! I knew it would be so. I deserve it--I deserve it! but oh, Lord Villiers, it will kill me!
gpt
Maude, are you mad?
human
I am not--oh, I am not! if a grief-crazed brain, a blighted life, a broken heart be not madness.
gpt
But, Maude! Good heavens! You are so young--not yet eighteen! Oh, it cannot be true!
human
Would to God it were not! Yet four years ago I was a wedded wife!
gpt
Wife, mother, and widow at eighteen! Maude, Maude, how can I realize this?
human
Oh, I was crazed! I was mad! and I did love him so, then! Not as I love you, Lord Ernest, with a woman's strong, undying affection, but with the wild, passionate fervor of youth. I must have inherited my dead mother's Spanish blood; for no calm-pulsed English girl ever felt love like that.
gpt
Oh, Lady Maude!--Lady Maude! I could hardly have believed a messenger from heaven had he told me this.
human
God be merciful to human error! A long life of sorrow and remorse must atone for that first rash fault.