His voice had sunk to a hoarse whisper. She had not sought to remove his hand, nor struggled in the least; and once it seemed as if this new development of his character, this animal fierceness, would conquer her: she admired courage. It was not so. He trembled with weakness before he had finished. He stopped too soon; he lost.
“You will find such parts exhausting to play,” she murmured, as he let her arm fall. “It needs a strong physique to endure exaggerated, nervous sentiment. And now, please, let us perform less trying scenes.” Then, with a low, cold anger, she continued: “It is only a coward that will dog a woman who finds his presence insupportable to her. This woman cannot, if she would, endure this man’s presence; it is her nature. Well, why rush blindly at the impossible? She wishes to live her spoiled life alone. The man can have no part in it--never, never! But she has money. If in that way--”
He stretched out his hand protestingly, the fingers spread in excitement. “No more--not another word!” he said. “I ask for forgiveness, for one word of kindness--and I am offered money! the fire that burned me to eat, instead of bread! I had a wife once,” he added in a kind of troubled dream, looking at her as if she were very far away, “and her name was Mercy--her name was Mercy--Mercy Madras. I loved her. I sinned for her sake. A message came that she was dead to me; but I could not believe that it was so altogether, for I had knelt at her feet and worshipped her. I went to her, but she sent me away angrily. Years passed. ‘She will have relented now,’ I said, and I followed her, and found her as I thought. But it was not she; it was a wicked ghost in her beautiful body--nothing more. And then I turned away and cursed all things, because I knew that I should never see my wife again. Mercy Madras was dead. ... Can you not hear the curses?”
Still she was unmoved. She said with a cruel impatience in her voice: “Yes, Mercy Madras is dead. How then can she forgive? What could her ghost--as you call her--do, but offer the thing which her husband--when he was living--loved so well that he sold himself into bondage, and wrecked his world and hers for it--Money? Well, money is at his disposal, as she said before--”