dous, after a pause, "extremely glad. I
thought she had escaped a great danger."

Hallin studied his face closely.

"She is free, Aldous--and she is a noble creature--she has learnt from
life--and from death--this last two years. And--you still love her. Is
it right to make no more effort?"

Aldous saw the perspiration standing on the wasted brow--would have
given the world to be able to content or cheer him--yet would not, for
the world, at such a moment be false to his own feeling or deceive his
questioner.

"I think it is right," he said deliberately, "--for a good many reasons,
Edward. In the first place I have not the smallest cause--not the
fraction of a cause--to suppose that I could occupy with her now any
other ground than that I occupied two years ago. She has been kind and
friendly to me--on the whole--since we met in London. She has even
expressed regret for last year--meaning, of course, as I understood, for
the pain and trouble that may be said to have come from her not knowing
her own mind. She wished that we should be friends. And"--he turned his
head away--"no doubt I could be, in time.... But, you see--in all that,
there is nothing whatever to bring me forward again. My fatal mistake
last year, I think now, lay in my accepting what she gave me--accepting
it so readily, so graspingly even. That was my fault, my blindness,
and--it was as unjust to her--as it was hopeless for myself. For hers is
a nature"--his eyes came back to his friend; his voice took a new force
and energy--"which, in love at any rate, will give all or nothing--and
will never be happy itself, or bring happiness, till it gives all. That
is what last year taught me. So that even if she--out of kindness or
remorse for giving pain--were willing to renew the old tie--I should be
her worst enemy and my own if I took a single step towards it. Marriage
on such terms as I was thankful for last year, would be humiliation to
me, and bring no gain to her. It will never serve a man with her"--his
voice broke into emotion--"that he should make no claims! Let him claim
the uttermost far-thing--her whole self. If she gives it, _then_ he may
know what love means!"

Hallin had listened intently. At Aldous's last words his expression
showed pain and perplexity. His mind was full of vague impressions,
memories, which seemed to argue with and dispute one of the chief things
Aldous had been saying. But they were not definite enough to be put
forward.