say no definitely," she answered;
"unless you can consent to live with me on the terms on which I
lived with Dolly's father."

The man hesitated a moment. Then he began to plead hard for
reconsideration. But Herminia's mind was made up. She couldn't
belie her past; she couldn't be false to the principles for whose
sake she had staked and lost everything. "No, no," she said
firmly, over and over again. "You must take me my own way, or you
must go without me."

And Harvey Kynaston couldn't consent to take her her own way. His
faith was too weak, his ambitions were too earthly. "Herminia," he
said, before they parted that afternoon, "we may still be friends;
still dear friends as ever? This episode need make no difference
to a very close companionship?"

"It need make no difference," Herminia answered, with a light touch
of her hand. "Harvey, I have far too few friends in the world
willingly to give up one of them. Come again and go down with
Dolly and me to Hind Head as usual next Sunday."

"Thank you," the man answered. "Herminia, I wish it could have
been otherwise. But since I must never have you, I can promise you
one thing; I will never marry any other woman."

Herminia started at the words. "Oh, no," she cried quickly. "How
can you speak like that? How can you say anything so wrong, so
untrue, so foolish? To be celibate is a very great misfortune even
for a woman; for a man it is impossible, it is cruel, it is wicked.
I endure it myself, for my child's sake, and because I find it hard
to discover the help meet for me; or because, when discovered, he
refuses to accept me in the only way in which I can bestow myself.
But for a man to pretend to live celibate is to cloak hateful wrong
under a guise of respectability. I should be unhappy if I thought
any man was doing such a vicious thing out of desire to please me.
Take some other woman on free terms if you can; but if you cannot,
it is better you should marry than be a party to still deeper and
more loathsome slavery."

And from that day forth they were loyal friends, no more, one to
the other.

XVII.

And yet our Herminia was a woman after all. Some three years
later, when Harvey Kynaston came to visit her one day, and told her
he was really going to be married,--what sudden thrill was this
that passed through and through her. Her heart stood still. She
was aware that she regretted the comparative loss of a very near
and dear