Shall
I leave you, my lord?"
The marquis made no answer.
"God knows I loved her," he said after a while, with a sigh.
"You loved her, my lord!"
"I did, by God!"
"Love a woman like that, and come to this?"
"Come to this! We must all come to this, I fancy, sooner or later.
Come to what, in the name of Beelzebub?"
"That, having loved a woman like her, you are content to lose her.
In the name of God, have you no desire to see her again?"
"It would be an awkward meeting," said the marquis. His was an old
love, alas! He had not been capable of the sort that defies change.
It had faded from him until it seemed one of the things that are
not! Although his being had once glowed in its light, he could now
speak of a meeting as awkward!
"Because you wronged her?" suggested the schoolmaster.
"Because they lied to me, by God!"
"Which they dared not have done, had you not lied to them first."
"Sir!" shouted the marquis, with all the voice he had left. "O God,
have mercy! I cannot punish the scoundrel."
"The scoundrel is the man who lies, my lord."
"Were I anywhere else--"
"There would be no good in telling you the truth, my lord. You
showed her to the world as a woman over whom you had prevailed,
and not as the honest wife she was. What kind of a lie was that,
my lord? Not a white one, surely?"
"You are a damned coward to speak so to a man who cannot even turn
on his side to curse you for a base hound. You would not dare it
but that you know I cannot defend myself.
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