_live_, and really
_suffer_. I must live with them, work for them, find out what I can do
for them. You must give me up--you must indeed. Oh! and you will! You
will be glad enough, thankful enough, when--when--you know what I _am_!"

He started at the words. Where was the prophetess? He saw that she was
lying white and breathless, her face hidden against the arm of the
chair.

In an instant he was on his knees beside her.

"Marcella!" he could hardly command his voice, but he held her
struggling hand against his lips. "You think that suffering belongs to
one class? Have you really no conception of what you will be dealing to
me if you tear yourself away from me?"

She withdrew her hand, sobbing.

"Don't, don't stay near me!" she said; "there is--more--there is
something else."

Aldous rose.

"You mean," he said in an altered voice, after a pause of silence, "that
another influence--another man--has come between us?"

She sat up, and with a strong effort drove back her weeping.

"If I could say to you only this," she began at last, with long pauses,
"'I mistook myself and my part in life. I did wrong, but forgive me, and
let me go for both our sakes'--that would be--well!--that would be
difficult,--but easier than this! Haven't you understood at all?
When--when Mr. Wharton came, I began to see things very soon, not in my
own way, but in his way. I had never met any one like him--not any one
who showed me such possibilities in _myself_--such new ways of using
one's life, and not only one's possessions--of looking at all the great
questions. I thought it was just friendship, but it made me critical,
impatient of everything else. I was never myself from the beginning.
Then,--after the ball,"--he stooped over her that he might hear her the
more plainly,--"when I came home I was in my room and I heard
steps--there are ghost stories, you know, about that part of the house.
I went out to see. Perhaps, in my heart of hearts--oh, I can't tell, I
can't tell!--anyway, he was there. We went into the library, and we
talked. He did not want to touch our marriage,--but he said all sorts of
mad things,--and at last--he kissed me."

The last words were only breathed. She had often pictured herself
confessing these things to him. But the humiliation in which she
actually found herself before him was more than she had ever dreamed of,
more than she could bear. All those great words of pity and mercy--all
that implication of a