his
engagement. Looking at them again he knew he was not mistaken in his
judgement, when calmly, surely, and persistently he had thought of the
thing as immortal. But according to another condition that his honour
had laid down, its immortality depended upon her. At this point honour
itself raised the question whether it was fair to throw on her the
burden of so great a decision? She might hesitate to deny him so large
a part of his immortality, and yet object to being so intimately, so
personally bound up with it. He could see her delicate conscience
straining under the choice.

But surely she knew him well enough to know that he had left her free?
She would know that he could accept nothing from her pity, not even a
portion of his immortality. She would trust his sincerity; for that at
any rate had never failed her. And since what he had written he had
written, she would see that unless he destroyed it with his own hands
the decision as to publication must rest with her. It concerned her so
intimately, so personally, that it could not be given to the world
without her consent. Whether what he had written should have been
written was another matter. If she thought not, if her refinement
accused him of a sin against good taste, that would only make his
problem simpler. Even if her accusation remained unspoken, he would
know it, he would see it, through whatever web her tenderness wrapped
round it. His genius would contend against her judgement, would not
yield a point to her opinion, but his honour would take it as settling
the question of publication. In no case should she be able to say or
think that he had used his genius as a cover for a cowardly passion,
or that by compelling her admiration he had taken advantage of her
pride.

But would she say it or think it? Not she. He knew her. And if his
knowledge had brought much misery, it brought consolation too. Where
Lucia was concerned he had never been sustained by any personal
conceit; he had never walked vainly in the illusion of her love. At
that supreme point his imagination had utterly broken down; he had
never won from it a moment's respite from his intolerable lucidity.
There was a certain dignity about his despair, in that of all the
wonderful web of his dreams he had made no fine cloak to cover it. It
shivered and suffered in a noble nakedness, absolutely unashamed. But
one thing he knew also, that if Lucia did not love him, she loved his
genius. Even when