"
"But you do believe it? You must and shall believe it. I ask for
nothing in return. As my God is my judge, if I thought it possible
that your heart should be to me as mine is to you, I could have
put a pistol to my ear sooner than speak as I have spoken." Though
she paused for some word from him he could not utter a word. He
remembered many things, but even to her in his present mood he could
not allude to them;--how he had kissed her at the Falls, how she had
bade him not come back to the house because his presence to her was
insupportable; how she had again encouraged him to come, and had
then forbidden him to accept even an invitation to dinner from her
husband. And he remembered too the fierceness of her anger to him
when he told her of his love for Violet Effingham. "I must insist
upon it," she continued, "that you shall take me now as I really
am,--as your dearest friend, your sister, your mother, if you will.
I know what I am. Were my husband not still living it would be the
same. I should never under any circumstances marry again.
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