must know that we can depend on ourselves. We may have to separate now
for some months--perhaps a year--perhaps longer; we must school
ourselves to look upon each other as friends--friends, nothing more. It
will be very hard--for me, and it is on my account only that we must
separate now. But you will accept this, even if you cannot understand
it, because my life here depends on you. I don't say anything about my
happiness. I leave that out of the reckoning. But if I am to live--to
get through the day's work, I must love you and I must see you. Later
on, we may be able to meet quite often. This will be something to which
I can look forward. All this has been in my mind always--ever since I
first met you. I feel now as though every thought, every hour, every
event of the last five months has been a preparation for this moment. On
one point, however, I have never wavered. We can't desecrate our love by
some odious law-suit. If this life were all, it would be different. But
it isn't all. It seems as though we are not to be everything to each
other. Yet we can be more than everything--we can be one existence even
if we cannot be man and wife. We can help each other, we may see each
other--in time."

"In time?" she repeated. The certainty that she would have to be
deprived of his presence for the greater part, at all events, of her
life came over her with intolerable anguish, and with it she felt a
presentiment of the future struggle to be waged against the profound
instinct which drew them, with all the strength of a river's current,
toward each other.

"No, no," she said, "if you send me away, I shall die. They frighten me;
they tell me lies. My mother is dead; my father is dead. I have no one
but you. You can't forsake me. You love me too much. I know you won't
leave me."

Her innocence made the recklessness of her appeal the more compelling.
The beseeching, intense affection of her soul transfigured her face with
an almost unearthly sweetness. White, trembling, and despairing she laid
her head upon his shoulder, holding him with both arms, and swaying from
the agony of a grief without hope and without tears.

"You must try to understand," he said, "you must try. You are so
young--such a child, but you do know that we can't live together, in the
same house, if our marriage is not valid. That would compromise your
honour. How else can I say what I must say?"

"I shouldn't mind. God would understand."

"But the wor