‘How can that be, my dear?’

’Not to others, but to us it can be so.  There shall be no word spoken of the past.’  Again he shook his head.  ’Will it not be best that there should be no word spoken?’

‘"Forgiveness may be spoken with the tongue,"’ he said, beginning to quote from a poem which had formerly been frequent in his hands.

’Cannot there be real forgiveness between you and me, between husband and wife who, in truth, love each other?  Do you think that I would tell you of it again?’ He felt that in all that she said there was an assumption that she had been right, and that he had been wrong.  She was promising to forgive.  She was undertaking to forget.  She was willing to take him back to the warmth of her love, and the comfort of her kindness but was not asking to be taken back.  This was what he could not and would not endure.  He had determined that if she behaved well to him, he would not be harsh to her, and he was struggling to keep up to his resolve.  He would accuse her of nothing if he could help it.  But he could not say a word that would even imply that she need forget that she should forgive.  It was for him to forgive and he was willing to do it, if she would accept forgiveness:  ’I will never speak a word, Louis,’ she said, laying her head upon his shoulder.

‘Your heart is still hardened,’ he replied slowly.

‘Hard to you?’

’And your mind is dark.  You do not see what you have done.  In our religion, Emily, forgiveness is sure, not after penitence, but with repentance.’

‘What does that mean?’

’It means this, that though I would welcome you back to my arms with joy, I cannot do so, till you have confessed your fault.’

’What fault, Louis?  If I have made you unhappy, I do, indeed, grieve that it has been so.’

‘It is of no use,’ said he.  ’I cannot talk about it.  Do you suppose that it does not tear me to the very soul to think of it?’

‘What is it that you think, Louis?’ As she had been travelling thither, she had determined that she would say anything that he wished her to say, make any admission that might satisfy him.  That she could be happy again as other women are happy, she did not expect; but if it could be conceded between them that bygones should be bygones, she might live with him and do her duty, and, at least, have her child with her.

Her father had told her that her husband was mad; but she was willing to put up with his madness on such terms as these.  What could her husband do to her in his madness that he could not do also to the child?  ‘Tell me what you want me to say, and I will say it,’ she said.

‘You have sinned against me,’ he said, raising her head gently from his shoulder.

‘Never!’ she exclaimed.  ‘As God is my judge, I never have!’ As she said this, she retreated and took the sobbing boy again into her arms.