"No, I'm not a child--after to-day, after to-night--I am not a child--and I know too well what I say--too well--too well. Richard, you don't know what has been in my heart. That night, he held me in his arms and kissed me--when he said good-bye. Then I was innocent, for I was dazed by grief and had not come to my senses, after what he told me. But to-day I said--_to-day_--to have his arms around me once again--to have him kiss me once again as he kissed me then--I would go away from all I ever had been taught of right and duty, and would be satisfied." "Then, thank God for what has come," said Richard, hoarsely, wiping from his forehead the great drops that had broken out upon it. "No!" I cried with a fresh burst of weeping. "No, I cannot thank God, for I want him back again. _I want him_. I had rather die than be separated from him. I cannot thank God for taking him away from me. Oh, Richard, what shall I do? I loved him, loved him so. Don't look so stern; don't turn away from me. You used to love me. Could you thank God for taking me away from you, out of your arms, warm, and strong, and living, and making me cold, and dumb, and stiff, like _that_?" "Yes, Pauline, if it had been to save us both from sin." "You don't know what love is, if you say that." "I know what sin is, better than you do, maybe. Listen, Pauline. I've loved you ever since I saw you; men don't often love better than I have loved you; but I'd rather drag you, to-night, to that black river there, and hold you down with my own hands till the breath left your body, than see you turn into a sinful woman, and lead the life of shame you tell me you had it in your heart to lead, to-day." "Is it so very awful?" I whispered with a shiver, my own emotion stilled before his. "I only loved him!" "Forget you ever did," he said, rising, and pacing up and down the room. I put my hands before my face, and felt as if I were alone in the world with sin. If this unspoken, passionate, sweet thought, that I had harbored, were so full of danger as to force God to blast me with such punishment, as to drive this tender, generous, loving man to wish me dead, what must be the blackness of the sin from which I had been saved, if I were saved? If there were, indeed, anything but shocks of woe and punishment, and deadly despair and darkness, in this strange world in which I found myself. There was a silence. I rose to my feet. I don't know what I meant to do or where to go; my only impulse was to hide myself from the eyes of my companion, and to go away from him, as I had hidden myself from all others, since I was smitten with this chastisement. "Forgive me, Pauline," he said, coming to my side. "It is the second time I have been harsh with you this dreadful day. This is what comes of selfishness. I hope you will forget what I have said." I still turned to go away, feeling afraid of him and ashamed before him. He put out his hand to stop me.