"I have never had a sign of it."

"There is the proof."

"When it might have been shown again and again!"

"The greater proof!"

"Why did he not speak when he was privileged?--strangely, but
privileged."

"He feared."

"Me?"

"Feared to wound you--and himself as well, possibly. Men may be
pardoned for thinking of themselves in these cases."

"But why should he fear?"

"That another was dearer to you?"

"What cause had I given . . . Ah I see! He could fear that; suspect it!
See his opinion of me! Can he care for such a girl? Abuse me, Laetitia.
I should like a good round of abuse. I need purification by fire. What
have I been in this house? I have a sense of whirling through it like a
madwoman. And to be loved, after it all!--No! we must be hearing a tale
of an antiquary prizing a battered relic of the battle-field that no
one else would look at. To be loved, I see, is to feel our littleness,
hollowness--feel shame. We come out in all our spots. Never to have
given me one sign, when a lover would have been so tempted! Let me be
incredulous, my own dear Laetitia. Because he is a man of honour, you
would say! But are you unconscious of the torture you inflict? For if I
am--you say it--loved by this gentleman, what an object it is he
loves--that has gone clamouring about more immodestly than women will
bear to hear of, and she herself to think of! Oh, I have seen my own
heart. It is a frightful spectre. I have seen a weakness in me that
would have carried me anywhere. And truly I shall be charitable to
women--I have gained that. But loved! by Vernon Whitford! The miserable
little me to be taken up and loved after tearing myself to pieces! Have
you been simply speculating? You have no positive knowledge of it! Why
do you kiss me?"

"Why do you tremble and blush so?"

Clara looked at her as clearly as she could. She bowed her head. "It
makes my conduct worse!"

She received a tenderer kiss for that. It was her avowal, and it was
understood: to know that she had loved or had been ready to love him,
shadowed her in the retrospect.

"Ah! you read me through and through," said Clara, sliding to her for a
whole embrace.

"Then there never was cause for him to fear?" Laetitia whispered.

Clara slid her head more out of sight. "Not that my heart . . . But I
said I have seen it; and it is unworthy of him. And if, as I think now,
I could have been so rash, so weak, wicked, unpardonable--such
thoughts were in