I couldn't live in peace if I put the shadow of a wilful sin between myself and God.
I have caused sorrow already–I know–I feel it; but I have never deliberately consented to it; I have never said,
'They shall suffer, that I may have joy.'
It has never been my will to marry you; if you were to win consent from the momentary triumph of my feeling for you, you would not have my whole soul.
If I could wake back again into the time before yesterday, I would choose to be true to my calmer affections, and live without the joy of love."
Stephen loosed her hand, and rising impatiently, walked up and down the room in suppressed rage.
"Good God!" he burst out at last, "what a miserable thing a woman's love is to a man's!
I could commit crimes for you,–and you can balance and choose in that way.
But you don't love me; if you had a tithe of the feeling for me that I have for you, it would be impossible to you to think for a moment of sacrificing me.
But it weighs nothing with you that you are robbing me of my life's happiness."
Maggie pressed her fingers together almost convulsively as she held them clasped on her lap.
A great terror was upon her, as if she were ever and anon seeing where she stood by great flashes of lightning, and then again stretched forth her hands in the darkness.
"No, I don't sacrifice you–I couldn't sacrifice you," she said, as soon as she could speak again; "but I can't believe in a good for you, that I feel, that we both feel, is a wrong toward others.
We can't choose happiness either for ourselves or for another; we can't tell where that will lie.
We can only choose whether we will indulge ourselves in the present moment, or whether we will renounce that, for the sake of obeying the divine voice within us,–for the sake of being true to all the motives that sanctify our lives.
I know this belief is hard; it has slipped away from me again and again; but I have felt that if I let it go forever, I should have no light through the darkness of this life."
"But, Maggie," said Stephen, seating himself by her again, "is it possible you don't see that what happened yesterday has altered the whole position of things?
What infatuation is it, what obstinate prepossession, that blinds you to that?
It is too late to say what we might have done or what we ought to have done.
Admitting the very worst view of what has been done, it is a fact we must act on now; our position is altered; the right course is no longer what it was before.
We must accept our own actions and start afresh from them.
Suppose we had been married yesterday?
It is nearly the same thing.
The effect on others would not have been different.
It would only have made this difference to ourselves," Stephen added bitterly, "that you might have acknowledged then that your tie to me was stronger than to others."
Again a deep flush came over Maggie's face, and she was silent.
Stephen thought again that he was beginning to prevail,–he had never yet believed that he should not prevail; there are possibilities which our minds shrink from too completely for us to fear them.
"Dearest," he said, in his deepest, tenderest tone, leaning toward her, and putting his arm round her, "you are mine now,–the world believes it; duty must spring out of that now.
"In a few hours you will be legally mine, and those who had claims on us will submit,–they will see that there was a force which declared against their claims."
Maggie's eyes opened wide in one terrified look at the face that was close to hers, and she started up, pale again.
"Oh, I can't do it," she said, in a voice almost of agony;
"Stephen, don't ask me–don't urge me.
I can't argue any longer,–I don't know what is wise; but my heart will not let me do it.
I see,–I feel their trouble now; it is as if it were branded on my mind.
I have suffered, and had no one to pity me; and now I have made others suffer.
It would never leave me; it would embitter your love to me.
I do care for Philip–in a different way; I remember all we said to each other; I know how he thought of me as the one promise of his life. He was given to me that I might make his lot less hard; and I have forsaken him.
And Lucy–she has been deceived; she who trusted me more than any one.
I cannot marry you; I cannot take a good for myself that has been wrung out of their misery.
It is not the force that ought to rule us,–this that we feel for each other; it would rend me away from all that my past life has made dear and holy to me.
I can't set out on a fresh life, and forget that; I must go back to it, and cling to it, else I shall feel as if there were nothing firm beneath my feet."
"Good God, Maggie!" said Stephen, rising too and grasping her arm, "you rave.
How can you go back without marrying me?
You don't know what will be said, dearest.
You see nothing as it really is."
"Yes, I do.
But they will believe me.
I will confess everything.
Lucy will believe me–she will forgive you, and–and–oh, some good will come by clinging to the right.
Dear, dear Stephen, let me go!–don't drag me into deeper remorse.