"Good God, as if it could be!"
"Good-by, John!"
He did not answer her, but turned away, ashamed of the hard-wrung tears
in his eyes. She stood watching him go, her lips quivering,--she had
grieved the heart she loved best in the world. When he was gone, she
made her way blindly into the house and crept up-stairs to her own
room, and once there she fell on her knees beside the bed and buried
her face on her outstretched arms.
It was indeed more than she could bear. Then she was ashamed of her
rebellion. God Almighty would not give her more than she could bear; He
knew her, He would not do it. Perhaps she could bear more than others,
perhaps she had a greater power of endurance, as she had a greater
power of love. Her soul, reeling in darkness, cried out for release.
Then suddenly she remembered and understood. God was punishing her
for her sin. Was not that the old Biblical idea? She had sworn to a
falsehood before Him; to save her sister she had flung a challenge at
God. She had vowed to love Belhaven when she could not; she had vowed
to honor him when she despised him; she had vowed to obey him when
she was determined to have nothing to do with him. She was perjured;
she had called Eva a liar in her heart because Eva had maligned her,
and now she was herself a living lie. That was it; God was punishing
her! It was fair, it was just, it was what men would call a square
deal; she had no right to beg off, she was a coward. She had done it
on an impulse. She searched her own heart with merciless severity and
she knew that she would never have done it but for the thought that
Charter had left her for Mrs. Prynne. It stultified even her sacrifice;
it made her the more frivolous and contemptible in her own eyes, and
she was a coward, for she wanted to beg off. She wanted to tell John
the truth; it was hard to let him suffer as she had suffered. If she
could only have told him that she loved him and shared his pain,
but she dared not. John was good but she dared not. He would not be
resigned to such a fate; he would rebel against it, and if he rebelled,
would she resist him? Would she stand out for her own cause, or would
she yield to him? She was a strong woman, but she loved much; would she
want to yield, would she resist?
It had always cost her an effort to contradict Charter; her impulse
was always to give up, to be guided by him, and her happiness lay
in pleasing him. Would she be strong enough not only to resist John
but to resist her own heart? The enemy was within, the enemy of her
resolutions, her own heart, was John's ally; it was pleading for him
now. If she betrayed Eva, if she told John the truth, would he submit
to this miserable marriage to save Eva and Belhaven from Astry? Not
for a day, not for an hour! She knew John and she dared not tell him.
Then the desolate loneliness of it came back to her and she cast
herself, face downward, upon the floor and lay prone beside her bed,
submerged in supreme weakness and misery. All her strength was gone,
all her resistance, all her self-control; she lay there--broken and
desperate--overwhelmed at last. There was nothing left in the world.