u do not love me?" he said with a constrained smile, "and I am a
fool?"

"Love you!" she repeated. "Love you," she continued, bowing her brown
head over her hanging arms and clasped hands. "What then has brought me
to this? Oh," she said suddenly, again seizing him by his two arms, and
holding him from her with a half-prudish, half-passionate gesture, "why
could you not have left things as they were; why could we not have met
in the same old way we used to meet, when I was so foolish and so happy?
Why could you spoil that one dream I have clung to? Why didn't you leave
me those few days of my wretched life when I was weak, silly, vain, but
not the unhappy woman I am now. You were satisfied to sit beside me and
talk to me then. You respected my secret, my reserve. My God! I used
to think you loved me as I loved you--for THAT! Why did you break your
promise and follow me here? I believed you the first day we met, when
you said there was no wrong in my listening to you; that it should go no
further; that you would never seek to renew it without my consent. You
tell me I don't love you, and I tell you now that we must part, that
frightened as I was, foolish as I was, that day was the first day I had
ever lived and felt as other women live and feel. If I ran away from you
then it was because I was running away from my old self too. Don't you
understand me? Could you not have trusted me as I trusted you?"

"I broke my promise only when you broke yours. When you would not meet
me I followed you here, because I loved you."

"And that is why you must leave me now," she said, starting from his
outstretched arms again. "Do not ask me why, but go, I implore you. You
must leave this town to-night, to-morrow will be too late."

He cast a hurried glance around him, as if seeking to gather some reason
for this mysterious haste, or a clue for future identification. He saw
only the Sabbath-sealed cupboards, the cold white china on the dresser,
and the flicker of the candle on the partly-opened glass transom above
the door. "As you wish," he said, with quiet sadness. "I will go now,
and leave the town to-night; but"--his voice struck its old imperative
note--"this shall not end here, Lulu. There will be a next time, and I
am bound to win you yet, in spite of all and everything."

She looked at him with a half-frightened, half-hysterical light in her
eyes. "God knows!"

"And you will be frank with me then, and tell me all?"

"Yes, y