"I did not believe that you would let any circumstance of my birth create a prejudice in you against me, though it was sure to do so in others," said Will, shaking his head backward in his old way, and looking with a grave appeal into her eyes.
"If it were a new hardship it would be a new reason for me to cling to you," said Dorothea, fervidly.
"Nothing could have changed me but—" her heart was swelling, and it was difficult to go on; she made a great effort over herself to say in a low tremulous voice, "but thinking that you were different—not so good as I had believed you to be."
"You are sure to believe me better than I am in everything but one," said Will, giving way to his own feeling in the evidence of hers.
"I mean, in my truth to you.
When I thought you doubted of that, I didn't care about anything that was left.
I thought it was all over with me, and there was nothing to try for—only things to endure."
"I don't doubt you any longer," said Dorothea, putting out her hand; a vague fear for him impelling her unutterable affection.
He took her hand and raised it to his lips with something like a sob.
But he stood with his hat and gloves in the other hand, and might have done for the portrait of a Royalist.
Still it was difficult to loose the hand, and Dorothea, withdrawing it in a confusion that distressed her, looked and moved away.
"See how dark the clouds have become, and how the trees are tossed," she said, walking towards the window, yet speaking and moving with only a dim sense of what she was doing.
Will followed her at a little distance, and leaned against the tall back of a leather chair, on which he ventured now to lay his hat and gloves, and free himself from the intolerable durance of formality to which he had been for the first time condemned in Dorothea's presence.
It must be confessed that he felt very happy at that moment leaning on the chair.
He was not much afraid of anything that she might feel now.
They stood silent, not looking at each other, but looking at the evergreens which were being tossed, and were showing the pale underside of their leaves against the blackening sky.
Will never enjoyed the prospect of a storm so much: it delivered him from the necessity of going away.
Leaves and little branches were hurled about, and the thunder was getting nearer.
The light was more and more sombre, but there came a flash of lightning which made them start and look at each other, and then smile.
Dorothea began to say what she had been thinking of.
"That was a wrong thing for you to say, that you would have had nothing to try for.
If we had lost our own chief good, other people's good would remain, and that is worth trying for.
Some can be happy.
I seemed to see that more clearly than ever, when I was the most wretched.
I can hardly think how I could have borne the trouble, if that feeling had not come to me to make strength."
"You have never felt the sort of misery I felt," said Will; "the misery of knowing that you must despise me."
"But I have felt worse—it was worse to think ill—" Dorothea had begun impetuously, but broke off.
Will colored.
He had the sense that whatever she said was uttered in the vision of a fatality that kept them apart.
He was silent a moment, and then said passionately—
"We may at least have the comfort of speaking to each other without disguise.
Since I must go away—since we must always be divided—you may think of me as one on the brink of the grave."
While he was speaking there came a vivid flash of lightning which lit each of them up for the other—and the light seemed to be the terror of a hopeless love.
Dorothea darted instantaneously from the window; Will followed her, seizing her hand with a spasmodic movement; and so they stood, with their hands clasped, like two children, looking out on the storm, while the thunder gave a tremendous crack and roll above them, and the rain began to pour down.
Then they turned their faces towards each other, with the memory of his last words in them, and they did not loose each other's hands.
"There is no hope for me," said Will.
"Even if you loved me as well as I love you—even if I were everything to you—I shall most likely always be very poor: on a sober calculation, one can count on nothing but a creeping lot.
It is impossible for us ever to belong to each other.
It is perhaps base of me to have asked for a word from you.
I meant to go away into silence, but I have not been able to do what I meant."
"Don't be sorry," said Dorothea, in her clear tender tones.
"I would rather share all the trouble of our parting."
Her lips trembled, and so did his.
It was never known which lips were the first to move towards the other lips; but they kissed tremblingly, and then they moved apart.
The rain was dashing against the window-panes as if an angry spirit were within it, and behind it was the great swoop of the wind; it was one of those moments in which both the busy and the idle pause with a certain awe.
Dorothea sat down on the seat nearest to her, a long low ottoman in the middle of the room, and with her hands folded over each other on her lap, looked at the drear outer world.
Will stood still an instant looking at her, then seated himself beside her, and laid his hand on hers, which turned itself upward to be clasped.
They sat in that way without looking at each other, until the rain abated and began to fall in stillness.
Each had been full of thoughts which neither of them could begin to utter.
But when the rain was quiet, Dorothea turned to look at Will.