What's Mine's Mine — Volume 3. George MacDonald

If I had only had some warning! Oh, why did you not tell me before? Why did you not prepare me for it? You might have known what it would be to hear it so suddenly!"

      More and more aghast grew Ian! What was to be done? What was to be said? What was left for a man to do, when a woman laid her soul before him? Was there nothing but a lie to save her from bitterest humiliation? To refuse any woman was to Ian a hard task; once he had found it impossible to refuse even where he could not give, and had let a woman take his soul! Thank God, she took it indeed! he yielded himself perfectly, and God gave him her in return! But that was once, and for ever! It could not be done again!

      "I am very sorry!" he murmured; and the words and their tone sent a shiver through the heart of Christina.

      But now that she had betrayed her secret, the pent up tide of her phantasy rushed to the door. She was reckless. Used to everything her own way, knowing nothing of disappointment, a new and ill understood passion dominating her, she let everything go and the torrent sweep her with it. Passion, like a lovely wild beast, had mastered her, and she never thought of trying to tame it. It was herself! there was not enough of her outside the passion to stand up against it! She began to see the filmy eyed Despair, and had neither experience to deal with herself, nor reticence enough to keep silence.

      "If you speak to me like that," she cried, "my heart will break!—Must you go away?"

      "Dear Miss Palmer,—" faltered Ian.

      "Oh!" she ejaculated, with a world of bitterness in the protest.

      "—do let us be calm!" continued Ian. "We shall not come to anything if we lose ourselves this way!"

      The WE and the US gave her a little hope.

      "How can I be calm!" she cried. "I am not cold-hearted like you!—You are going away, and I shall never see you again to all eternity!"

      She burst out weeping afresh.

      "Do love me a little before you go," she sobbed. "You gave me my life once, but that does not make it right to take it from me again! It only gives you a right to its best!"

      "God knows," said Ian, "if my life could serve you, I should count it a small thing to yield!—But this is idle talk! A man must not pretend anything! We must not be untrue!"

      She fancied he did not believe in her.

      "I know! I know! you may well distrust me!" she returned. "I have often behaved abominably to you! But indeed I am true now! I dare not tell you a lie. To you I MUST speak the truth, for I love you with my whole soul."

      Ian stood dumb. His look of consternation and sadness brought her to herself a little.

      "What have I done!" she cried, and drawing back a pace, stood looking at him, and trembling. "I am disgraced for ever! I have told a man I love him, and he leaves me to the shame of it! He will not save me from it! he will not say one word to take it away! Where is your generosity, Ian?"

      "I must be true!" said Ian, speaking as if to himself, and in a voice altogether unlike his own.

      "You will not love me! You hate me! You despise me! But I will not live rejected! He brushes me like a feather from his coat!"

      "Hear me," said Ian, trying to recover himself. "Do not think me insensible—"

      "Oh, yes! I know!" cried Christina yet more bitterly; "—INSENSIBLE TO THE HONOUR I DO YOU, and all that world of nothing!—Pray use your victory! Lord it over me! I am the weed under your foot! I beg you will not spare me! Speak out what you think of me!"

      Ian took her hand. It trembled as if she would pull it away, and her eyes flashed an angry fire. She looked more nearly beautiful than ever he had seen her! His heart was like to break. He drew her to the chair, and taking a stool, sat down beside her. Then, with a voice that gathered strength as he proceeded, he said:—

      "Let me speak to you, Christina Palmer, as in the presence of him who made us! To pretend I loved you would be easier than to bear the pain of giving you such pain. Were I selfish enough, I could take much delight in your love; but I scorn the unmanliness of accepting gold and returning silver: my love is not mine to give."

      It was some relief to her proud heart to imagine he would have loved her had he been free. But she did not speak.

      "If I thought," pursued Ian, "that I had, by any behaviour of mine, been to blame for this,—" There he stopped, lest he should seem to lay blame on her.—"I think," he resumed, "I could help you if you would listen to me. Were I in like trouble with you, I would go into my room, and shut the door, and tell my Father in heaven everything about it. Ah, Christina! if you knew him, you would not break your heart that a man did not love you just as you loved him."