You need not wish _me_ joy to think of it, I have so much. Observe, Aurora Leigh; Your droop of eyelid is the same as his, And, but for you, I might have won his love, And, to you, I have shown my naked heart,— For which three things I hate, hate, hate you. Hush, Suppose a fourth!—I cannot choose but think That, with him, I were virtuouser than you Without him: so I hate you from this gulf And hollow of my soul, which opens out To what, except for you, had been my heaven, And is instead, a place to curse by! LOVE.’ An active kind of curse. I stood there cursed— Confounded. I had seized and caught the sense Of the letter with its twenty stinging snakes, In a moment’s sweep of eyesight, and I stood Dazed.—‘Ah!—not married.’ ‘You mistake,’ he said; ‘I’m married. Is not Marian Erle my wife? As God sees things, I have a wife and child; And I, as I’m a man who honours God, Am here to claim them as my child and wife.’ I felt it hard to breathe, much less to speak. Nor word of mine was needed. Some one else Was there for answering. ‘Romney,’ she began, ‘My great good angel, Romney.’ Then at first, I knew that Marian Erle was beautiful. She stood there, still and pallid as a saint, Dilated, like a saint in ecstasy, As if the floating moonshine interposed Betwixt her foot and the earth, and raised her up To float upon it. ‘I had left my child, Who sleeps,’ she said, ‘and, having drawn this way, I heard you speaking, ... friend!—Confirm me now. You take this Marian, such as wicked men Have made her, for your honourable wife?’ The thrilling, solemn, proud, pathetic voice. He stretched his arms out toward the thrilling voice, As if to draw it on to his embrace. —‘I take her as God made her, and as men Must fail to unmake her, for my honoured wife.’ She never raised her eyes, nor took a step, But stood there in her place, and spoke again. —‘You take this Marian’s child, which is her shame In sight of men and women, for your child, Of whom you will not ever feel ashamed?’ The thrilling, tender, proud, pathetic voice. He stepped on toward it, still with outstretched arms, As if to quench upon his breast that voice. —‘May God so father me, as I do him, And so forsake me as I let him feel He’s orphaned haply. Here I take the child To share my cup, to slumber on my knee, To play his loudest gambol at my foot, To hold my finger in the public ways, Till none shall need inquire, ‘Whose child is this,’ The gesture saying so tenderly, ‘My own’.’