human
I am afraid I don't quite understand you,
gpt
Then what are you doing here?
human
I thought perhaps you might be in need of help,
gpt
For what? John and Patrick can take care of my husband. Mr. Lorimer is--very ill; but we are quite capable of taking care of him. Why should I need help? She watched him in silent hostility. Then, as she saw the sudden drawing of his lips, her mood changed. This was her friend, the only friend who was near her and loyal to her. She must not hurt him with her bitterness, lest he too should fail her, just as Lorimer already had done. For months, she had unconsciously depended upon his loyalty. Now she sought it consciously.
human
What is the use of keeping up the pretence any longer? she went on drearily.
gpt
You have been with us day after day; you know how things are going; you know how my husband has--that he has not always been himself. Even in her desperation, she still chose her words guardedly.
human
Do you think I ever could have held him?
gpt
No, he said in a low voice.
human
No; you never could have held him. It was impossible.
gpt
Then why didn't you warn me?
human
How could I?
gpt
And you have known from the first that it was all a mistake?
human
Yes.
gpt
And you have let me suffer for it?
human
You are not the only one,
gpt
Mrs. Lorimer--Beatrix--
human
Wait! You don't know it all, you can't know. You never knew Sidney Lorimer as I did, for my Sidney Lorimer never really existed. I idealized him, half-deified him. The Sidney Lorimer to whom I gave my love, my very life, was one man; the Sidney Lorimer I married was quite another. A woman can't love two men totally unlike each other, and yet I am bound to him, bound down to the day of my death, or of his. We both come of a long-lived race, and this must go on for years. I have tried to prevent it, this gradual change in him; but it was impossible. Then I tried not to see it; but I had to see it. It insisted on itself and on being seen. I have been watching it, dreading the time when I must admit it in so many words. I have tried to be loyal to him, God knows! She spoke rapidly. Then she checked herself, and the dreary note came again.
gpt
But what is done, is done. I loved one man; I am married to another. Nothing now can bring back to me the man I used to know, the man I used to imagine him. Then what will the future amount to? We shall go on together to the end, two prisoners bound by a chain which only holds us the tighter and galls us the more, the looser it grows between us. One doesn't mind the dying; it's the limitless, unchanging years ahead, the black, blank years that frighten me. How can I escape them?