'Cannot love me, Hetta! Say it out, if it is true.'
'It is true,' said Hetta. There came over the face of the other girl a stern hard look, as though she had resolved at the moment to throw away from her all soft womanly things. And she relaxed her hold on Hetta's waist. 'Oh, my dear, I do not mean to be cruel, but you ask me for the truth.'
'Yes; I did.'
'Men are not, I think, like girls.'
'I suppose not,' said Marie slowly. 'What liars they are, what brutes;--what wretches! Why should he tell me lies like that? Why should he break my heart? That other man never said that he loved me. Did he never love me,--once?'
Hetta could hardly say that her brother was incapable of such love as Marie expected, but she knew that it was so. 'It is better that you should think of him no more.'
'Are you like that? If you had loved a man and told him of it, and agreed to be his wife and done as I have, could you bear to be told to think of him no more,--just as though you had got rid of a servant or a horse? I won't love him. No;--I'll hate him. But I must think of him. I'll marry that other man to spite him, and then, when he finds that we are rich, he'll be broken-hearted.'
'You should try to forgive him, Marie.'
'Never. Do not tell him that I forgive him. I command you not to tell him that. Tell him,--tell him, that I hate him, and that if I ever meet him, I will look at him so that he shall never forget it. I could,--oh! --you do not know what I could do. Tell me;--did he tell you to say that he did not love me?'
'I wish I had not come,' said Hetta.
'I am glad you have come. It was very kind. I don't hate you. Of course I ought to know. But did he say that I was to be told that he did not love me?'
'No;--he did not say that.'
'Then how do you know? What did he say?'
'That it was all over.'
'Because he is afraid of papa. Are you sure he does not love me?'
'I am sure.'
'Then he is a brute. Tell him that I say that he is a false-hearted liar, and that I trample him under my foot.' Marie as she said this thrust her foot upon the ground as though that false one were in truth beneath it,--and spoke aloud, as though regardless who might hear her. 'I despise him;--despise him. They are all bad, but he is the worst of all. Papa beats me, but I can bear that. Mamma reviles me and I can bear that. He might have beaten me and reviled me, and I could have borne it. But to think that he was a liar all the time;--that I can't bear.' Then she burst into tears. Hetta kissed her, tried to comfort her, and left her sobbing on the sofa.