did not love you, in the big way,
in those old days, and maybe it is not love I feel for you now; but it
is a great and wonderful thing, so different from the feeling I once
had. It is very powerful, and it is also very cruel, because it
smothers me in one moment, and in the next it makes me want to fly to
you, heedless of consequences.

"And what might those consequences be, Ian, and shall I let you face
them? The real world, your world, England, Europe, would have no more
use for all your skill and knowledge and power, because there would be
a woman in the way. People who would want to be your helpers, and to
follow you, would turn away when they saw you coming; or else they
would say the superficial things which are worse than blows in the face
to a man who wants to feel that men look to him to help solve the
problems perplexing the world. While it may not be love I feel for you,
whatever it is, it makes me a little just and unselfish now. I will
not--unless a spring-time madness drives me to it to-day--I will not go
with you.

"As for the other solution you offer, deceiving the world as to your
purposes, to go far away upon some wild mission, and to die!

"Ah, no, you must not cheat the world so; you must not cheat yourself
so! And how cruel it would be to me! Whatever I deserve--and in leaving
you to marry Rudyard I deserved heavy punishment--still I do not
deserve the torture which would follow me to the last day of my life
if, because of me, you sacrificed that which is not yours alone, but
which belongs to all the world. I loathe myself when I think of the old
wrong that I did you; but no leper woman could look upon herself with
such horror as I should upon myself, if, for the new wrong I have done
you, you were to take your own life.

"These are so many words, and perhaps they will not read to you as
real. That is perhaps because I am only shallow at the best; am only,
as you once called me, 'a little burst of eloquence.' But even I can
suffer, and I believe that even I can love. You say you cannot go on as
things are; that I must go with you or you must die; and yet you do not
wish me to go with you. You have said that, too. But do you not wonder
what would become of me, if either of these alternatives is followed? A
little while ago I could deceive Rudyard, and put myself in pretty
clothes with a smile, and enjoy my breakfast with him and look in his
face boldly, and enjoy the clothes, and the world and t