t was shame to him that he could not rise at once to the
height of her splendid self-renunciation. "You mistake me,
dearest," he answered, petting her hand in his own (and she allowed
him to pet it). "It wasn't for myself, or for the world I
hesitated. My thought was for you. You are very young yet. You
say you have counted the cost. I wonder if you have. I wonder if
you realize it."

"Only too well," Herminia replied, in a very earnest mood. "I have
wrought it all out in my mind beforehand,--covenanted with my soul
that for women's sake I would be a free woman. Alan, whoever would
be free must himself strike the blow. I know what you will
say,--what every man would say to the woman he loved under similar
circumstances,--'Why should YOU be the victim? Why should YOU be
the martyr? Bask in the sun yourself; leave this doom to some
other.' But, Alan, I can't. I feel _I_ must face it. Unless one
woman begins, there will be no beginning." She lifted his hand in
her own, and fondled it in her turn with caressing tenderness.
"Think how easy it would be for me, dear friend," she cried, with
a catch in her voice, "to do as other women do; to accept the
HONORABLE MARRIAGE you offer me, as other women would call it; to
be false to my sex, a traitor to my convictions; to sell my kind
for a mess of pottage, a name and a home, or even for thirty pieces
of silver, to be some rich man's wife, as other women have sold it.
But, Alan, I can't. My conscience won't let me. I know what
marriage is, from what vile slavery it has sprung; on what unseen
horrors for my sister women it is reared and buttressed; by what
unholy sacrifices it is sustained, and made possible. I know it
has a history, I know its past, I know its present, and I can't
embrace it; I can't be untrue to my most sacred beliefs. I can't
pander to the malignant thing, just because a man who loves me
would be pleased by my giving way and would kiss me, and fondle me
for it. And I love you to fondle me. But I must keep my proper
place, the freedom which I have gained for myself by such arduous
efforts. I have said to you already, 'So far as my will goes, I am
yours; take me, and do as you choose with me.' That much I can
yield, as every good woman should yield it, to the man she loves,
to the man who loves her. But more than that, no. It would be
treason to my sex; not my life, not my future, not my individuality,
not my freedom."

"I wouldn't ask