nding over her as she shrank back against the
wall. "Do you think that I love you so little that I could--Love? Is that
the kind of love that you have been extolling to the skies?"

She covered her flaming face with her hands. "Forgive me, forgive me!" she
murmured, brokenly. "I am so ashamed of myself."

He was profoundly moved. A great pity for her swept through him. "I shall
not come again," he said hoarsely. "I will be fair. You are right. You see
more clearly than I can see. I must not come to you again unless I come to
ask you to be my wife. You are right. We would go mad with--"

"Listen to me, Braden," she interrupted in a strangely quiet manner. "I
shall never ask you to come to me. If you want me you must ask me to come
to you. I will come. But you are to impose no conditions. You must leave
me to fight out my own battle. My love is so great, so honest, so strong
that it will triumph over everything else. Listen! Let me say this to you
before I send you away from me to-day. Love is relentless. It wrecks
homes, it sends men to the gallows and women to the madhouse. It makes
drunkards, suicides and murderers of noble men and women. It causes men
and women to abandon homes, children, honour--and all the things that
should be dear to them. It impoverishes, corrupts and--defiles. It makes
cowards of brave men and brave men of cowards. The thing we call love has
a thousand parts. It has purity, nobility, grandeur, greed, envy,
lust--everything. You have heard of good women abandoning good husbands for
bad lovers. You have heard of good mothers giving up the children they
worship. You have heard of women and men murdering husbands and wives in
order to remove obstacles from the path of love. One woman whom we both
know recently gave up wealth, position, honour, children,--everything,--to
go down into poverty and disgrace with the man she loved. You know who I
mean. She did it because she could not help herself. Opposed to the evil
that love can do, there is always the beautiful, the sweet, the pure,--and
it is that kind of love that rules the world. But the other kind _is_
love, just the same, and while it does not govern the world, it is none
the less imperial. What I want to say to you is this: while love may
govern the world, the world cannot govern love. You cannot govern this
love you have for me, although you may control it. Nor can I destroy the
love I have for you. I may not deserve your love, but I have it a