t meaning to him, but are linked in her mind with associations
full of bitterness.

"And you have no regrets?" regarding her keenly.

"None."

"And does no faintest spark of love for him rest in your heart? Oh,
Dulce, take care!"

"Love! I never loved," she says, turning her large eyes full on his. "I
have seen people who loved, and so I know. _They_ seem to live, think,
breathe for each other alone; the very air seemed full of ecstasy to
them; every hour of their day was a divine joy; but I--what have I known
of all that?"

She pauses and lays her hand upon her heart.

"And he?" asks Gower, unwisely.

She laughs ironically.

"You have seen him," she says. "Not only that, but you have surely seen
us together often enough to be able to answer your question for
yourself. A very rude question, by-the-by."

"I beg your pardon," says Gower, heartily ashamed of himself.

"Oh, it doesn't matter," says Dulce, throwing out one hand in a quick,
nervous fashion. "Nothing matters much, does it? And now that we are on
it, I will answer your question. I believe if I were the only woman in
the world, Roger would never have even liked me! He seemed _glad,
thankful_, when I gave him a release; _almost_," steadily, "as glad as I
was to give it!"

"_Were_ you glad!" asks Gower, eagerly. Going up to her, he takes her
hand and holds it with unconscious force in both his own.

"Am I to think that you doubt me?" she says with a frown.

"Shall I ever have occasion to doubt you?" says Gower, with sudden
passion. "Dulce! now that you are free, will you listen to me? I have
only one thought in the world, and that is you, always you! Have I any
chance with you? My darling, my own, be kind to me and try to take me to
your heart."

The tears well into her eyes. She does not turn from him, but there is
no joy in her face at this honest outburst, only trouble and perplexity,
and a memory that stings. There is, too, some very keen gratitude.

"_You_ at least do not hate me," she says, with a faint, sobbing cadence
in her voice, that desolates, but sweetens it. Her lips quiver. In very
truth she is thankful to him in a measure. Her heart warms to him. There
is to her a comfort in the thought (a comfort she would have shrunk from
acknowledging even to herself) in the certainty that he would be only
too proud, too pleased, to be to her what another might have tried to be
but would not. Here is this man before her, willing at a word from