hair at Willey Farm one evening. He had been
talking to Miriam for some weeks, but had not come to the point. Now he
said suddenly:

"I am twenty-four, almost."

She had been brooding. She looked up at him suddenly in surprise.

"Yes. What makes you say it?"

There was something in the charged atmosphere that she dreaded.

"Sir Thomas More says one can marry at twenty-four."

She laughed quaintly, saying:

"Does it need Sir Thomas More's sanction?"

"No; but one ought to marry about then."

"Ay," she answered broodingly; and she waited.

"I can't marry you," he continued slowly, "not now, because we've no
money, and they depend on me at home."

She sat half-guessing what was coming.

"But I want to marry now--"

"You want to marry?" she repeated.

"A woman--you know what I mean."

She was silent.

"Now, at last, I must," he said.

"Ay," she answered.

"And you love me?"

She laughed bitterly.

"Why are you ashamed of it," he answered. "You wouldn't be ashamed
before your God, why are you before people?"

"Nay," she answered deeply, "I am not ashamed."

"You are," he replied bitterly; "and it's my fault. But you know I can't
help being--as I am--don't you?"

"I know you can't help it," she replied.

"I love you an awful lot--then there is something short."

"Where?" she answered, looking at him.

"Oh, in me! It is I who ought to be ashamed--like a spiritual cripple.
And I am ashamed. It is misery. Why is it?"

"I don't know," replied Miriam.

"And I don't know," he repeated. "Don't you think we have been too
fierce in our what they call purity? Don't you think that to be so much
afraid and averse is a sort of dirtiness?"

She looked at him with startled dark eyes.

"You recoiled away from anything of the sort, and I took the motion from
you, and recoiled also, perhaps worse."

There was silence in the room for some time.

"Yes," she said, "it is so."

"There is between us," he said, "all these years of intimacy. I feel
naked enough before you. Do you understand?"

"I think so," she answered.

"And you love me?"

She laughed.

"Don't be bitter," he pleaded.

She looked at him and was sorry for him; his eyes were dark with
torture. She was sorry for him; it was worse for him to have this
deflated love than for herself, who could never be properly mated. He
was restless, for ever urging forward and trying to find a way out. He
might do as he liked, and have what he liked