What was he that he should stand by and see that struggle tearing her heart asunder?
"My poor child!" said he, and then he repeated his words, "My poor child! It would have been better if we had never come together.

We are going to part now." She looked at him and laughed in his face.
He did not know what this meant.

Had she been simply acting a part all along?
Had she been playing a comedy part all the while he was thinking that a great tragedy was being enacted?
Or was it possible that she was mocking him?
that her laugh was the laugh of the jailer who hears a prisoner announce his intention of walking out of his cell?
"Good-by," said he.
She fixed her eyes upon his face, then she laughed again.
He now knew what she meant by her laugh.
"Perhaps you may think that you have too firm a hold upon me to give me a chance of parting from you," said he.

"You may be right; but if you tell me to go I shall try and obey you.

But think what it means before you tell me to leave you forever." She did think what it meant.