parted I have been trying with all my strength of body and soul to forget you, and it seemed as though I were beginning to succeed; and now you have appeared before me, to dash my hard-won peace from my hand, and give me all the raging pain and misery over again. If I were differently made—if I could forget everything and love you in the old fashion, I would do it; but I cannot . . . . I love you still, but with the worst half of my heart, not the better. Something has gone from you in my eyes that will never come back. Though I married you I should have no respect for you; in my eyes you would be no more than a beautiful toy. The old worship is dead, and it will never come back. And though you think you love me now, a woman who betrays one man will betray another; and it would not please me to see my wife's eyes roving among my friends in search of admiration."
"I would have been faithful to you," she says, very low.
"No, you would not," he says, with a heavy sigh, "it is not in you to be true to any man. You only care for me because I am out of your reach. If I were your husband you would not rest till you had played me false."
"And I have loved you so well, so well!" she says, with a sob, lifting the pale, lovely face that has so changed during the past minutes to his.
"God help us both!" he cries passionately, pale as she through his bronzed darkness. He takes the soft face between his two brown hands and gazes into it eagerly, devouringly, as a man may look his last on his heart's delight, lying in the envious coffin that will by-and-by hide her from his sight for ever. "Kiss me once, love, before we part, and then pray God that on earth we may never meet again."
She lays her arms, white as any lilies, about his stooped neck; she lifts the beautiful lips, out of which all colour has fled, and
