d clasped, and folded them across his
breast.

"What has come between us?" she continued. "Tell me why it is that
instead of growing together, we are continually drawing apart? Sometimes
I feel that we are drifting eternally away from each other. I can no
longer get near to you. An ocean seems to roll between us! What does it
mean? Is this the nature of love? Does it only last for a little time?
Do you not love me any more? Will you never love me again?"

He still gazed sullenly at the floor.

"Will you not answer me?" she begged imploringly. "I cannot endure it
any longer. My heart will break. I am a woman, you must remember that! I
need love and sympathy so much. It is my daily bread. What is the
matter? I beseech you to tell me! Is it your business? Do you feel, as I
do, that it is wrong? I have sometimes thought so, and that you were
worried by it and would be glad to give it up but for the fear that it
might deprive me of some of these luxuries. Is it that? Oh! you do not
know me. You do not know how happy I should be to leave these things
forever, and to go out into the street this very night a pauper. It is
wrong, David. I see it now. I feel it in the depths of my heart."

"Wrong, is it," he cried savagely, "and whose fault is it that I am in
this wrong business?"

"It is mine," she said, "mine! I own it. It was I who led you astray.
How often and how bitterly have I regretted it! How strange it is, that
love like mine could ever have done you harm. I do not understand this.
I cannot see how love can do harm. I have loved you so truly and so
deeply, and I would give my life for you, and yet this love of mine has
been the cause of all your trouble! It would seem that love ought to
bless us. Would you not think so?"

He sat silent; any one but Pepeeta could have seen that this silence
would soon be broken by an explosion.

"Speak to me, my love!" she pleaded, "speak to me. I confess that I have
wronged you. But is there not something that I can do to make you happy?
Surely a wrong like this cannot be irreparable. Tell me something that I
can do to make you happy!"

With a violent and convulsive effort, he pushed her away and exclaimed
fiercely, "Leave me! Do not touch me! I hate you!"

"Hate me?" she cried, "hate me? Oh! David. You cannot mean it. You
cannot mean that you hate me?"

"But I do!" he exclaimed bitterly. "I hate you. You have ruined me, and
now you confess it. From the time that I first saw