yet. You will hear me?"

"Oh, yes."

"I have loved you ever since I was a boy." He paused as though he
expected that she would make some answer to this; but of course there
was nothing that she could say. "I have been true to you since we
were together almost as children."

"It is your nature to be true."

"In this matter, at any rate, I shall never change. I never for
a moment had a doubt about my love. There never has been any one
else whom I have ventured to compare with you. Then came that great
trouble. Emily, you must let me speak freely this once, as so much,
to me at least, depends on it."

"Say what you will, Arthur. Do not wound me more than you can help."

"God knows how willingly I would heal every wound without a word
if it could be done. I don't know whether you ever thought what I
suffered when he came among us and robbed me,--well, I will not say
robbed me of your love, because it was not mine--but took away with
him that which I had been trying to win."

"I did not think a man would feel it like that."

"Why shouldn't a man feel as well as a woman? I had set my heart on
having you for my wife. Can any desire be dearer to a man than that?
Then he came. Well, dearest; surely I may say that he was not worthy
of you."

"We were neither of us worthy," she said.

"I need not tell you that we all grieved. It seemed to us down in
Herefordshire as though a black cloud had come upon us. We could not
speak of you, nor yet could we be altogether silent."

"Of course you condemned me,--as an outcast."

"Did I write to you as though you were an outcast? Did I treat you
when I saw you as an outcast? When I come to you to-day, is that
proof that I think you to be an outcast? I have never deceived you,
Emily."

"Never."

"Then you will believe me when I say that through it all not one word
of reproach or contumely has ever passed my lips in regard to you.
That you should have given yourself to one whom I could not think to
be worthy of you was, of course, a great sorrow. Had he been a prince
of men it would, of course, have been a sorrow to me. How it went
with you during your married life I will not ask."

"I was unhappy. I would tell you everything if I could. I was very
unhappy."

"Then came--the end." She was now weeping, with her face buried in
her handkerchief. "I would spare you if I knew how, but there are
some things which must be said."

"No;--no. I will bear it all--from you."

"Wel