"Let me open my heart to you now. Forgive me, Richard, for
being so angry with you, but I did not know the General had said such
a thing. Believe me, he imagines more than he knows. When you took me
in your arms and held me against your breast it was a revelation to
me. I cannot love or give my hand to any other man. You are everything
in the world to me now, Richard; must you leave me to mingle in this
cruel civil strife in which all my dearest friends and relations have
perished."
She had had her revelation; I now had mine, and it was an exceedingly
bitter one. I trembled at the thought of confessing my secret to her,
now when she had so unmistakably responded to the passion I had insanely
revealed.
Suddenly she raised her dark, luminous eyes to mine, anger and shame
struggling for mastery on her pale face.
"Speak, Richard!" she exclaimed. "Your silence at this moment is an
insult to me."
"For God's sake, have mercy on me, Dolores," I said. "I am not free--I
have a wife."
For some moments she sat staring fixedly at me, then, flinging my hand
from her, covered her face. Presently she uncovered it again, for shame
was overcome and cast out by anger. She rose and stood up before me,
her face very white.
"You have a wife--a wife whose existence you concealed from me till
this moment!" she said. "Now you ask for mercy when your secret has
been wrung from you! Married, and you have dared to take me in your
arms, to excuse yourself afterwards with the plea of passion!
Passion--do you know what it means, traitor? Ah, no; a breast like
yours cannot know any great or generous emotion.
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