If it pleases you still to misunderstand me, it may please you also to know that there is a reminder of her even in this.

I have no remembrance of a word of affection from her, nor a caress; I have been as hopeless in my love for her who was my mother, as of the woman I would make my wife." "But you have seen no one, you know no one, you are young, you scarcely know your own self! You will forget this, you will forget ME! And if--if--I should--listen to you, what would the world say, what would YOU yourself say a few years hence?
Oh, be reasonable.

Think of it,--it would be so wild,--so mad! so--so--utterly ridiculous!" In proof of its ludicrous quality, two tears escaped her eyes in the darkness.

But Clarence caught the white flash of her withdrawn handkerchief in the shadow, and captured her returning hand.

It was trembling, but did not struggle, and presently hushed itself to rest in his.
"I'm not only a fool but a brute," he said in a lower voice.