d
spend your life in this isolation, that you--you--"

He broke off, as if words failed him.

"What better can I do?" she said. "You must not think of me as idle
and useless. I am going to try not to be that. I have tried a little.
Ask the rector. And I am going to try more. There is but one thing
that I deeply desire, and that is to be a better woman than I have
been in the past. Oh, I will try hard--I will, indeed I will--to do a
little good in the future, to make up for all the harm I have done!"

She ceased, her voice failing her, and as she looked at the man
standing near her she saw that he was scarcely listening. Some
intense preoccupation made him take in but vaguely what she was
saying. She saw that he was deeply moved in some way, and the
consciousness that this was so gave her a sense of alarm. She felt
her own will weakening, and she knew that somehow she must get this
parting over, if her strength were to suffice for it.

"Good-bye," she said, holding out her hand.

"Don't be too sorry for me. You have lightened my heart inexpressibly
by what you have told me. Now that I can feel that you know
all--that, wrong and wicked as I was, I was not so false as it
seemed--I can bear the future with courage. I am sure of it. I want
to say good-bye now, because I prefer not to see you again. You would
only try to shake me in a determination that is not to be shaken.
Don't trouble about me--please don't," she added. "I have health and
youth, and these will suffice me for what I have to do."

"Health and youth!" he cried, ignoring her proffered hand, and
throwing his own hands up in a gesture of repudiation. "And what do
these signify in a situation such as yours? They only mean that you
will prolong an existence which, for such a woman as you, seems worse
than death. You ask me to leave you so? To say good-bye--"

"Yes, I beg it, I implore it, I insist upon it," she interrupted him,
feeling that her strength was almost gone. "You have said that you
were willing to do me a service--then leave me."

She sank back in her chair exhausted.

"My God! am I a brute?" he said. "Have I made you ill with my idiotic
persistency? I will go. I will rid you of the distress and annoyance
of my presence. But before I go, Bettina," he said, with a sudden
break in his voice, "I must and will satisfy my heart by one thing: I
must, for the sake of my own soul's peace, tell you this. I have
never ceased to love you, and I never s