human
I told you a few days ago, he pursued,
gpt
He tapped his forehead.
human
I've struggled, and fought, and pushed, and swaggered, and bluffed, and had ups and downs, and taken heart, and swaggered and bluffed again, and lied all through--and I've made Herbert Strange a respectable man of business on the high road to success. But when I come near you it all goes to pieces--like one of those curiously conserved dead bodies when they're brought to the air. There's nothing to them. There's nothing to me--so long as I'm Herbert Strange.
gpt
But you _are_ Herbert Strange. You can't help yourself--now.
human
Herbert Strange goes back into the nothingness out of which he was born the minute I become Norrie Ford again.
gpt
But you can't do that!
human
It's exactly what I mean to do. He spoke very slowly
gpt
I'm going to be a free man, and my own master, even if it leads me where--where they meant to put me when you snatched me away. I'm going back to my fellow-men, to the body corporate--
human
So that if--if anything happens, she said,
gpt
I shall have driven you to it. That's how you get your revenge.
human
Not at all. I'm not coming to this decision suddenly, or in a spirit of revenge, in any way. He followed her, standing near her, on the hearth-rug.
gpt
I can truthfully say, he went on in his slow, explanatory fashion,
human
No, it doesn't.
gpt
Well, if it did you'd see it wasn't, if you were in my place for a month. I didn't mind it so much at first. I stood it by day and just suffered by night--till the Jarrotts began to be so kind to me, and I came to New York--and--and--and Evie!
human
I'm sorry I've spoken to you as I have, she said, hastily.
gpt
If I'd known you felt like that--
human
You were quite right. I always understood that. But I can't go on with it. If Evie marries me now, it shall be knowing who I am.
gpt
You don't mean that you could possibly tell her?
human
I'm going to tell every one.
gpt
Then it will be my doing!
human
It will be your doing--up to a point. But it will be something for you to be proud of, not to regret. You've only brought my mistake so clearly before me that even I can't stand it--when I've stood so much. You ask me to turn my back on Evie and sneak away. You've got the right to command, and there's nothing for me but to obey you. But I can't help seeing the sort of life that would be left to me after I'd carried out your orders. It wouldn't only be the loss of Evie--I may lose her in any case--it would be the loss of everything within myself that's enabled me hitherto merely to hold up my head--and bluff.
gpt
I might withdraw what I've just asked you to do. Perhaps we could find some other way.
human
You're weakening. That's not like you. And it wouldn't do any good now. Even if we did patch up some other scheme, there would still remain what you talked about a minute ago--the loyalty that every human being owes to every other.
gpt
But I thought you didn't recognize that?
human
I said I didn't. But in here --he tapped his fingers over the heart--
gpt
I did, and I do. You've brought me to see it.
human
That's very noble, but you saw it for yourself--
gpt
Through a glass--darkly; now I can look at the thing in clear daylight, and see what I have to do.