o utter it all.

"You love me no longer, then?"

"I love you no longer."

She did not look at him; she was conscious only of the hot fire wearing
her eyes, and the vexing click of the clock. After a while he bent
over her silently,--a manly, tender presence.

"When love goes once," he said, "it never returns. Did you say it was
gone, Margret?"

One effort more, and Duty would be satisfied.

"It is gone."

In the slow darkness that came to her she covered her face, knowing and
hearing nothing. When she looked up, Holmes was standing by the
window, with his face toward the gray fields. It was a long time
before he turned and came to her.

"You have spoken honestly: it is an old fashion of yours. You believed
what you said. Let me also tell you what you call God's truth, for a
moment, Margret. It will not do you harm."--He spoke gravely,
solemnly.--"When you loved me long ago, selfish, erring as I was, you
fulfilled the law of your nature; when you put that love out of your
heart, you make your duty a tawdry sham, and your life a lie. Listen
to me. I am calm."

It was calmness that made her tremble as she had not done before, with
a strange suspicion of the truth flashing on her. That she, casing
herself in her pride, her conscious righteousness, hugging her
new-found philanthropy close, had sunk to a depth of niggardly
selfishness, of which this man knew nothing. Nobler than she; half
angry as she felt that, sitting at his feet, looking up. He knew it,
too; the grave judging voice told it; he had taken his rightful place.
Just, as only a man can be, in his judgment of himself and her: her
love that she had prided herself with, seemed weak and drifting,
brought into contact with this cool integrity of meaning. I think she
was glad to be humbled before him. Women have strange fancies,
sometimes.

"You have deceived yourself," he said: "when you try to fill your heart
with this work, you serve neither your God nor your fellow-man. You
tell me," stooping close to her, "that I am nothing to you: you believe
it, poor child! There is not a line on your face that does not prove it
false. I have keen eyes, Margret!"-- He laughed.--"You have wrung this
love out of your heart? If it were easy to do, did it need to wring
with it every sparkle of pleasure and grace out of your life! Your
very hair is gathered out of your sight: you feared to remember how my
hand had touched it? Your dress is stingy and