"Well, it is no business of mine," he says, harshly, ashamed and angry at himself for his temporary lapse into friendliness. "God knows I have had as good reason to hate you, and wish you ill, as ever man had! I _have_ hated you," he says, with fierce heartiness, "during the last three months, as I should not have thought it possible to hate anything so weak and tender. I _hope_ I hate you still!" Remembering how much deeplier she had sinned against that other, and with how godlike a fulness and freedom he had pardoned her, she feels her heart rise up against him. "The worse case I see you in, the more I ought to rejoice--the more I _should_ have rejoiced yesterday," he continues, with rapid passion; "and yet--and yet--" He passes his hand across his forehead, pushing the hair away; and not even the dab of mud on his nose can hinder the expression of his countenance from having something of a tragical pathos in it. "And yet what?" she asks, tremulously, moving a step nearer to him. "And yet, for the life of me, while I am _with_ you, I cannot. When I am away from you, I can remember what you _are;_ when I am with you, I see only what you seem. Esther! Esther! why, in God's name, don't the two tally better?" "Whether they tally or not can be of but little concern to you now, Mr. Gerard," she answers, with some exasperation. His brown cheek flushes into shamed angry-red. "You are right," he says, stiffly. "It _is_ no concern of mine; I am sorry I needed reminding." "Why must we waste time digging that poor old past out of its grave?" she says, with persuasive gentleness, as her hand lays itself lightly, as if half afraid of being shaken off, upon his scarlet sleeve. "Why cannot we let bygones, that" (with a sigh) "are so completely bygones, be bygones? I did you an injury once--not an irreparable one, you will allow, since it is already repaired" (smiling half-scornful, half-melancholy); "and my whole life since has been a punishment--O God! _what_ a punishment!" (putting her hand for a second over her eyes). "I am tired of being punished now. We shall see very little of one another henceforth, but that little might as well be in civility as in incivility--mightn't it?" "Civility!"--he repeats, without much of that quality in his tone--"civility between you and me! And what would that end in, pray? It would be oversweet at first, and bitterer than wormwood afterwards, as our former _civility_ was. No--no! we will have no sophisms, no absurd Platonisms here! God forbid my thrusting myself into temptation again! We will say 'good morning' and 'good evening' to one another, as people would remark it if we did not. But for the rest, let us hold our tongues and keep apart; and as soon as I can do it, without exciting great question, you may rely upon my going; and then we shall have done with one another for good, I pray God!" She bends her head submissively. "You are right, I think."