We cannot help ourselves." The girl stood as in a trance, her eyes caught and held by his face.
"Oh, the misery of things," she said half-sobbing.

"I have given my soul to another, and I knew it was not mine to give.

Why, oh why, did you not speak to me sooner?
I have been hungering for you and you never came." A sense of his folly choked him.
"And I have made you suffer, poor darling! And the whole world is out of joint for us!" The hopeless feeling of loss, forgotten for a moment, came back to him.
The girl was gone from him for ever, though a bridge of hearts should always cross the chasm of their severance.
"I am going away," he said, "to make reparation.

I have my repentance to work out, and it will be bitterer than yours, little woman.

Ours must be an austere love." She looked at him till her pale face flushed and a sad exultation woke in her eyes.
"You will never forget ?" she asked wistfully, confident of the answer.
"Forget!" he cried.