 it impossible. I could not go till I had seen
you once more.«
    »What more have you to say to me?«
    She knew that she was speaking recklessly, without a thought for dignity.
Her question sounded as if it had been extorted from her by pain.
    »That if I go away from you now and finally, I go without a hope to support
my life. You are everything to me. You are offended; you shrink from me. It is
what I expected. Years ago, when I loved you without knowing what my love really
meant, I flung away every chance in a moment of boyish madness. When I should
have consecrated every thought to the hope of winning you, I made myself
contemptible in your eyes - worse, I made you loathe me. When it was too late I
understood what I had done. Then I loved you as a man loves the one woman whom
he supremely reverences, as I love you, and, I believe, shall always love you. I
could not go without saying this to you. I am happier in speaking the words than
I ever remember to have been in my life before.«
    Adela's bosom heaved, but excess of joy seemed to give her power to deal
lightly with the gift that was offered her.
    »Why did you not say this the last time?« she asked. One would have said,
from her tone, that it was a question of the merest curiosity. She did not
realise the words that passed her lips.
    »Because the distance between us seemed too great. I began to speak of that
money in the thought that it might lead me on. It had the opposite effect. You
showed me how cold you could be. It is natural enough. Perhaps your sympathies
are too entirely remote; and yet not long ago you talked with me as if your
interests could be much the same as mine. I can understand that you suppress
that side of your nature. You think me useless in the world. And indeed my life
has but one purpose, which is a vain one. I can do nothing but feed my love for
you. You have convictions and purposes; you feel that they are opposed to mine.
All that is of the intellect; I only live in my passion. We are different and
apart.«
    »Why do you say that, as if you were glad of it?«
    »Glad? I speak the words that come to my tongue. I say aloud to you what I
have been repeating again and again to
