human
Mockery, mockery, she said then, with a smile half bitter, half plaintive, on her colourless lips.
gpt
Did you wait to ask me that question till you knew what my answer must be? I have pledged the name of wife to another.
human
No, no; you say that to rebuke, to punish me! Unsay it! unsay it!
gpt
How can my words pain you? she said, drearily.
human
Did you not write that I had unfitted myself to be wife to you?
gpt
I?
human
That I had left behind me the peaceful immunities of private life? I felt you were so right! Yes! I am affianced to one who thinks that in spite of that misfortune--
gpt
Stop, I command you--stop! You saw my letter to Mrs. Morley. I have not had one moment free from torture and remorse since I wrote it. But whatever in that letter you might justly resent--
human
I did not resent--
gpt
You would forgive could you read my heart. No matter. Every sentiment in that letter, except those which conveyed admiration, I retract. Be mine, and instead of presuming to check in you the irresistible impulse of genius to the first place in the head or the heart of the world, I teach myself to encourage, to share, to exult in it. Do you know what a difference there is between the absent one and the present one--between the distant image against whom our doubts, our fears, our suspicions, raise up hosts of imaginary giants, barriers of visionary walls, and the beloved face before the sight of which the hosts are fled, the walls are vanished? Isaura, we meet again. You know now from my own lips that I love you. I think your lips will not deny that you love me. You say that you are affianced to another. Tell the man frankly, honestly, that you mistook your heart. It is not yours to give. Save yourself, save him, from a union in which there can be no happiness.
human
It is too late, said Isaura, with hollow tones, but with no trace of vacillating weakness on her brow and lips.
gpt
Did I say now to that other one, 'I break the faith that I pledged to you,' I should kill him, body and soul. Slight thing though I be, to him I am all in all; to you, Mr. Vane, to you a memory--the memory of one whom a year, perhaps a month, hence, you will rejoice to think you have escaped.