it seemed to cost him a horrible effort to speak.

'If,' he said, 'in a moment of temptation you did her the greatest
wrong that a man can do to a woman, you would perhaps say and do
anything rather than confess it.'

Walter tried to meet those eyes steadily, but failed. He broke forth
into passionate self-defence.

'That means you think the worst of me that one man can think of
another. You are wrong You are basely wrong! You speak of a moment of
temptation. Suppose me to have suffered that; what sort of temptation
do you suppose would have assailed me? A man is tempted according to
his fibre. Do you class me with those who can only be tempted by base
suggestions? What reason have I ever given you to think of me so?
Suppose me to have been tempted. You conclude that I must have aimed at
stealing the girl from you solely to gratify myself, heedless of her,
heedless of you. Such a motive as that is to outweigh every higher
instinct I possess, to blind me to past and future, to make me all at
once a heartless, unimaginative brute. That is your view of my
character, Grail!'

Gilbert had not the appearance of a man who listens. Since entering the
room, he had not moved from the spot where he stood, and now, with his
head again drooping, he seemed sunk in a reverie of the profoundest
sadness. But he heard, and he strove to believe. A fortnight ago he
would not have thought it possible for Walter Egremont to speak a word
of which the sincerity would seem doubtful. Since then he had spent
days and nights such as sap the foundations of a man's moral being and
shake convictions which appeared impregnable. The catastrophe which had
come upon him was proportionate in its effects to the immeasurable
happiness which preceded it. Remember that it was not only the
imaginary wrong from which his mind suffered; the fact that Thyrza
loved Egremont was in itself an agony almost enough to threaten his
reason. His love was not demonstrative; perhaps he did not himself know
all its force until jealousy taught him. How, think you, did he spend
that night on the Channel, voyaging from Southampton to Jersey? What
sort of companions were the winds and waves as he paced the deck in the
dim light before dawn, straining his eyes for the first sight of land?
To the end of all things that night would remain with him, a ghastly
memory. And since then he had not known one full hour of forgetfulness.
The days and the nights had succeeded each other