“I don’t loathe you. You are my one stay and comfort. Gogo! Will you
give me back to that terror?”
He fell squatting at my feet--it was his substitute for kneeling--and
clasped his arms about my skirt.
“Beast!” he groaned; “I neither meant nor could help it. To play upon
your fears!--To taste love by deputy!--O, forgive me, forgive me!”
“Yes,” I said quietly, “for the second time and always, because of
what you have done. But I fear for myself now, and shall go on
fearing. Let me go--O, Gogo, let me escape into the woods, and break
my heart on frost and hunger rather than wrong.”
Still clutching at me, with a look of horror, as if he felt the shadow
of his last hope eluding him, he scrambled erect again.
“Hunger!” he said. “Think of the snipe and teal! Listen to me, Diana.
Before God, I will not offend again. Base, black coward that I am!
Before God, Diana!”