I know you have been
angry and almost mad for many months, but you are not so now, and you
never will be any more. It was my fault--yes, mine. If I had not been so
cold and proud, you would never have left me. You thought I did not love
you; but I did; my own, my darling, I did--so dearly!"
All Guy's stout manhood was shivered within him, utterly and suddenly,
as 4000 years ago the rock was cloven in Horeb, the Mount of God. Now,
too, from the rift in the granite the waters flowed; the first tears
that he had shed since he was a very little child--the last that any
mortal saw there--streamed hot and blinding from his eyes down on the
thin, transparent hand that he held fast.
Would those with whom he was a by-word for hard sternness of character
have known him then? They would have been almost as much surprised to
see Constance Brandon--thought so haughty and cold--overcoming her
terror at his passionate burst of grief, to soothe him with every
tenderest gesture and with words that were each a caress, till the
convulsion passed away, and calm self-government returned.
Guy did not speak till he could quite control himself; then he said
firmly, but with a sob in his voice still,
"Yet I have killed you!"
"No, no," Constance answered, quickly; "indeed it is not so.
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