But a woman--weaker, more helpless, credulous, ignorant, and craving for light--must not in her agony go to a man for succor and sympathy." "Why should she not ?" burst out Barker passionately, releasing her in his attempt to gaze into her face.

"What man dare refuse her ?" "Not THAT," she said slowly, but with still averted eyes, "but because the world would say she LOVED him." "And what should she care for the opinion of a world that stands aside and lets her suffer?
Why should she heed its wretched babble ?" he went on in flashing indignation.
"Because," she said faintly, lifting her moist eyes and moist and parted lips towards him,--"because it would be TRUE!" There was a silence so profound that even the spring seemed to withhold its song as their eyes and lips met.

When the spring recommenced its murmur, and they could hear the droning of a bee above them and the rustling of the reed, she was murmuring, too, with her face against his breast: "You did not think it strange that I should follow you--that I should risk everything to tell you what I have told you before I told you anything else?
You will never hate me for it, George ?" There was another silence still more prolonged, and when he looked again into the flushed face and glistening eyes he was saying, "I have ALWAYS loved you.

I know now I loved you from the first, from the day when I leaned over you to take little Sta from your lap and saw your tenderness for him in your eyes.

I could have kissed you THEN, dearest, as I do now." "And," she said, when she had gained her smiling breath again, "you will always remember, George, that you told me this BEFORE I told you anything of her." "HER?
Of whom, dearest ?" he asked, leaning over her tenderly.
"Of Kitty--of your wife," she said impatiently, as she drew back shyly with her former intense gaze.
He did not seem to grasp her meaning, but said gravely, "Let us not talk of her NOW.