s whole
face ablaze with the fierceness of his remorseful self-reproach and the
power of his love.

"Listen to me, Theo," he said. "Let me confess to you; let me tell you
the truth for once. I am a coward and a villain. I was a villain to ask
a woman I did not truly love to be my wife. I am a coward to shrink from
the result of my vanity and madness. She is better than I am--this woman
who has promised herself to me; she is stronger, truer, purer; she has
loved me, she has been faithful to me; and God knows I honor and revere
her. I am not worthy to kiss the ground her feet have trodden upon. I
was vain fool enough to think I could make her happy by giving to her
all she did not ask for--my life, my work, my strength--not remembering
that Heaven had given her the sacred right to more. She has held to our
bond for years, and now see how it has ended! I stand here before you
to-night, loving you, adoring you, worshipping you, and knowing myself a
dishonored man, a weak, proved coward, whose truth is lost forever.

"I do not ask you for a word. I do not say a word further. I will not
perjure myself more deeply. I only say this as a farewell confession. It
will be farewell; we shall never see each other again on earth perhaps;
and if we do, an impassable gulf will lie between us. I shall go back to
England and hasten the marriage if I can; and then, if a whole life's
strenuous exertions and constant care and tenderness will wipe out the
dishonor my weakness has betrayed me into, it shall be wiped out. I do
not say one word of love to you, because I dare not. I only say, forgive
me, forget me, and good-by."

She had listened to him with a terrified light growing in her eyes; but
when he finished she got up from her seat, shivering from head to foot.

"Good-by," she said, and let him take her cold, lithe, trembling hands.
But the moment he touched them, his suppressed excitement and her own
half-comprehended pain seemed to frighten her, and she began to try to
draw them from his grasp.

"Go away, please," she said, with a wild little sob. "I can't bear it. I
don't want to be wicked, and perhaps I have been wicked, too. Miss Gower
is better than I am--more worth loving. Oh, try to love her,
and--and--only go away now, and let me be alone."

She ended in an actual little moan. She was shivering and sobbing, hard
as she tried to govern herself. And yet, though this man loved her, and
would have given half his life to snatc