No wonder you never kept him? Thank God, I can love him better than that! I wish I had been lovely, for his sake. . . . I should have liked to be good, for his sake . . . . He might have loved me then, but even as it is, and though he never loved me, while he loved you once (you should never forget that), my love for him has only taught me sweet and tender and sorrowful things; it has not set a flood of wild, impious passion ravening through my heart, as it has done through yours. If I could have my empty heart back again, I would not, for if he has brought me pain he has also given me an exquisite happiness. And since you never truly loved him, or as he ought to be loved, I tell you now that, however low you stoop, you will never win him back; though Satan were your bondsman, and delivered Paul Vasher's body over to you, you could not touch his soul, his mind, or his heart, they are dead to you now and always. And now go your way, fight your fight, do your worst—win him if you can, Silvia; but if the memory of the girl he loves do not protect him from your unwomanly pursuit, believe me when I say that in his integrity you have an enemy that will never yield to you. By fair means you will not win him; from foul ones may God protect him."
And I move away and leave her with that faint, wintry, strange smile on her face that I have so often tried to read and cannot. How cool and peaceful the sleeping garden looks! how fair the silver-braided sky! how hot and angry is my passionate, indignant, outraged heart! It was hard enough to bear my shame of lovelessness in my own eyes; it is something harder to have that sneering, evil woman speak openly of it. For she is wicked; I know it now, and that the intangible dislike and distrust I have always had for her is a well-grounded one, and that she means mischief to the man she professes to love. Does she love him, though? There was more of hate than tenderness in her voice just now. How can she reach or do him harm? A
