o by the power that directs our destinies
that I should know myself. I wish I dared to tell you more. I wish
to-night I dared to tell you all that I have come to know. But I dare
not, I dare not. You would not believe me. I could not even expect you
to believe me."

He stopped. Perhaps he hoped for a word that would deny his last
observation. But it did not come to him. And he hesitated for what
seemed to him a very long time, almost an eternity. He was beset by
indecision, by an extraordinary deep modesty and consciousness of his
own unworthiness that he had never before experienced, and also by a
new and acute consciousness of the splendor of Hermione's nature, of the
power of her heart, of the faithfulness and nobility of her temperament.

"All I can say, Hermione"--he at length went on speaking, and in his
voice sounded that strange modesty, a modesty that made his voice seem
to her almost like a voice of hesitating youth--"all that I dare to say
to-night is this. I told you just now that we all have our different
ways of loving. You have loved in your way. You have loved Delarey as
your husband. And you have loved me as your friend. Delarey, as your
husband, betrayed you. Only to-day you know it. I, as your friend--have
I ever betrayed you? Do you believe--even now when you are ready to
believe very much of evil--do you really believe that as a friend I
could ever betray you?"

He moved, stood in front of her, lifted his hands and laid them on her
shoulders.

"Do you believe that?"

"No."

"You have loved us in your way. He is dead. But I am here to love you
always in my way. Perhaps my way seems to you such a poor way--it must,
it must--that it is hardly worth anything at all. But perhaps, now that
I know so much of myself--and of you"--there was a slight break in his
voice--"and of you, I shall be able to find a different, a better way.
I don't know. To-night I doubt myself. I feel as if I were so unworthy.
But I may--I may be able to find a better way of loving you."

Quite unconsciously his two hands, which still rested upon her
shoulders, began to lean heavily upon them, to press them, to grip them
till she suffered a physical discomfort that almost amounted to pain.

"I shall seek a better way--I shall seek it. And the only thing I ask
you to-night is--that you will not forbid me to seek it."

The pressure of his hands upon her shoulders was becoming almost
unbearable. But she bore it. She bore it