Читать книгу White Narcissus онлайн

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'You do not love them,' he continued slowly, half-unwilling to voice his thought. 'But that does not cause you to change your attitude toward me. You're no kinder or more—reasonable. I dare say if you hated them you'd think that gave you the right, or the obligation to care for their needs.' The cruelty of his suffering was speaking now.

'Hate? I can never hate them—it would be impossible.' Yet she had answered so swiftly, with an involuntary look at him, that he felt he had probed her most secret dread. 'Only pity. It is pity which—Pity will kill me!' She exclaimed with sudden wildness, as though the words themselves lent to her sense a foretaste of ultimate bitterness.

'I can't! I can't!'

She was sobbing words against his shoulder, while all his thoughts, the froth on the billow of his emotion flew scattered by this sudden contact. And he had come determined not to touch her hand, for the havoc it would be to him afterward. Now he held her, tightly, speaking incoherently.

'Precious, Ada! This is going to kill you. Ada! Let us go away. You must! We can live a different life from this. We'll go——'