'I mean to show you how mad my love is. It was hawked through the late inquiries by Mr. Crisparkle, that young Landless had confessed to him that he was a rival of my lost boy. That is an inexpiable offence in my eyes. The same Mr. Crisparkle knows under my hand that I have devoted myself to the murderer's discovery and destruction, be he whom he might, and that I determined to discuss the mystery with no one until I should hold the clue in which to entangle the murderer as in a net. I have since worked patiently to wind and wind it round him; and it is slowly winding as Ispeak.'
'Your belief, if you believe in the criminality of Mr. Landless, is not Mr. Crisparkle's belief, and he is a good man,' Rosa retorts.
'My belief is my own; and I reserve it, worshipped of my soul!
Circumstances may accumulate so strongly EVEN AGAINST AN INNOCENTMAN, that directed, sharpened, and pointed, they may slay him. One wanting link discovered by perseverance against a guilty man, proves his guilt, however slight its evidence before, and he dies.
Young Landless stands in deadly peril either way.'
'If you really suppose,' Rosa pleads with him, turning paler, 'that I favour Mr. Landless, or that Mr. Landless has ever in any way addressed himself to me, you are wrong.'
He puts that from him with a slighting action of his hand and a curled lip.
'I was going to show you how madly I love you. More madly now than ever, for I am willing to renounce the second object that has arisen in my life to divide it with you; and henceforth to have no object in existence but you only. Miss Landless has become your bosom friend. You care for her peace of mind?'
'I love her dearly.'
'You care for her good name?'
'I have said, sir, I love her dearly.'
'I am unconsciously,' he observes with a smile, as he folds his hands upon the sun-dial and leans his chin upon them, so that his talk would seem from the windows (faces occasionally come and go there) to be of the airiest and playfullest - 'I am unconsciously giving offence by questioning again. I will simply make statements, therefore, and not put questions. You do care for your bosom friend's good name, and you do care for her peace of mind.
Then remove the shadow of the gallows from her, dear one!'
'You dare propose to me to - '
'Darling, I dare propose to you. Stop there. If it be bad to idolise you, I am the worst of men; if it be good, I am the best.
My love for you is above all other love, and my truth to you is above all other truth. Let me have hope and favour, and I am a forsworn man for your sake.'
Rosa puts her hands to her temples, and, pushing back her hair, looks wildly and abhorrently at him, as though she were trying to piece together what it is his deep purpose to present to her only in fragments.
'Reckon up nothing at this moment, angel, but the sacrifices that Ilay at those dear feet, which I could fall down among the vilest ashes and kiss, and put upon my head as a poor savage might. There is my fidelity to my dear boy after death. Tread upon it!'
With an action of his hands, as though he cast down something precious.
'There is the inexpiable offence against my adoration of you.
Spurn it!'
With a similar action.
'There are my labours in the cause of a just vengeance for six toiling months. Crush them!'
With another repetition of the action.
'There is my past and my present wasted life. There is the desolation of my heart and my soul. There is my peace; there is my despair. Stamp them into the dust; so that you take me, were it even mortally hating me!'
The frightful vehemence of the man, now reaching its full height, so additionally terrifies her as to break the spell that has held her to the spot. She swiftly moves towards the porch; but in an instant he is at her side, and speaking in her ear.
'Rosa, I am self-repressed again. I am walking calmly beside you to the house. I shall wait for some encouragement and hope. Ishall not strike too soon. Give me a sign that you attend to me.'
She slightly and constrainedly moves her hand.
'Not a word of this to any one, or it will bring down the blow, as certainly as night follows day. Another sign that you attend to me.'
She moves her hand once more.
'I love you, love you, love you! If you were to cast me off now -but you will not - you would never be rid of me. No one should come between us. I would pursue you to the death.'
The handmaid coming out to open the gate for him, he quietly pulls off his hat as a parting salute, and goes away with no greater show of agitation than is visible in the effigy of Mr. Sapsea's father opposite. Rosa faints in going up-stairs, and is carefully carried to her room and laid down on her bed. A thunderstorm is coming on, the maids say, and the hot and stifling air has overset the pretty dear: no wonder; they have felt their own knees all of a tremble all day long.