"If you had spoken out at the time, you might have left me, Rachel,
knowing that you had cruelly wronged an innocent man."
"If I had spoken out before other people," she retorted, with another
burst of indignation, "you would have been disgraced for life! If I had
spoken out to no ears but yours, you would have denied it, as you are
denying it now! Do you think I should have believed you? Would a man
hesitate at a lie, who had done what I saw YOU do--who had behaved about
it afterwards, as I saw YOU behave? I tell you again, I shrank from the
horror of hearing you lie, after the horror of seeing you thieve. You
talk as if this was a misunderstanding which a few words might have set
right! Well! the misunderstanding is at an end. Is the thing set right?
No! the thing is just where it was. I don't believe you NOW! I don't
believe you found the nightgown, I don't believe in Rosanna Spearman's
letter, I don't believe a word you have said. You stole it--I saw you!
You affected to help the police--I saw you! You pledged the Diamond to
the money-lender in London--I am sure of it! You cast the suspicion of
your disgrace (thanks to my base silence!) on an innocent man! You fled
to the Continent with your plunder the next morning! After all that
vileness, there was but one thing more you COULD do. You could come here
with a last falsehood on your lips--you could come here, and tell me
that I have wronged you!"
If I had stayed a moment more, I know not what words might have escaped
me which I should have remembered with vain repentance and regret. I
passed by her, and opened the door for the second time. For the second
time--with the frantic perversity of a roused woman--she caught me by
the arm, and barred my way out.
"Let me go, Rachel" I said. "It will be better for both of us. Let me
go."
The hysterical passion swelled in her bosom--her quickened convulsive
breathing almost beat on my face, as she held me back at the door.
"Why did you come here?" she persisted, desperately. "I ask you
again--why did you come here? Are you afraid I shall expose you? Now you
are a rich man, now you have got a place in the world, now you may marry
the best lady in the land--are you afraid I shall say the words which I
have never said yet to anybody but you? I can't say the words! I can't
expose you! I am worse, if worse can be, than you are yourself." Sobs
and tears burst from her. She struggled with them fiercely; she held
me more and more firmly. "I can't tear you out of my heart," she said,
"even now! You may trust in the shameful, shameful weakness which can
only struggle against you in this way!" She suddenly let go of me--she
threw up her hands, and wrung them frantically in the air. "Any other
woman living would shrink from the disgrace of touching him!" she
exclaimed. "Oh, God! I despise myself even more heartily than I despise
HIM!"