"You would have taken advantage of my
ignorance and have married me and never have let me know! And you
would have called that deception love and you would have called
yourself a true man!"
"But I did not do this! It was yourself who helped me to see that
the beginning of morality is to stop lying and deception."
"But if you had this on your conscience already, what right had you
ever to come near me?"
"I had come to love you!"
"Did your love of me give you the right to win mine?"
"It gave me the temptation."
"And what did you expect when you determined to tell me this? What
did you suppose such a confession would mean to me? Did you
imagine that while it was still fresh on your lips, I would smile
in your face and tell you it made no difference? Was I to hear you
speak of one whose youth and innocence you took away through her
frailties, and then step joyously into her place? Was this the
unfeeling, the degraded soul you thought to be mine? Would I have
been worthy even of the poor love you could give me, if I had done
that?"
"I expected you to marry me! I expected you to forgive. I have
this at least to remember: I lost you honestly when I could have
won you falsely."
"Ah, you have no right to seek any happiness in what is all sadness
to me! And all the sadness, the ruin of everything, comes from
your wrong-doing."
"Remember that my wrong-doing did not begin with me. I bear my
share: it is enough: I will bear no more.
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