s in me awoke, so deep, so ardent, so
imperious, that I conceived them as born of the need of one soul for
another. I attributed their power to genuine love. The following
reactions, when my soul held up a finger and bade me listen to her
still, small warnings, grew less positive and of ever less duration.
The frontier between physical and spiritual passion is perilously
narrow, perhaps. My judgment, at any rate, became insecure, then
floundered hopelessly. The sound of the harp-strings and of Marion's
voice could overwhelm its balance instantly.

Mistaking, perhaps, my lukewarm-ness for restraint, she led me at last
to the altar you described as one of sacrifice. And your instinct,
more piercing than my own, proved only too correct: that which I held
for love declared itself as pity only, the soft, affectionate pity of
a weakish man in whom the flesh cried loudly, the pity of a man who
would be untrue to himself rather than pain so sweet a girl by
rejecting the one great offering life placed within her gift. She
persuaded me so cunningly that I persuaded myself, yet was not aware
I did so until afterwards. I married her because in some manner I
felt, but never could explain, that she had need of me.

And, at the wedding, I remember two things vividly: the expression of
wondering resignation on your face, and upon hers--chiefly in the
eyes and in the odd lines about the mouth--the air of subtle triumph
that she wore: that she had captured me for her very own at last, and
yet--for there was this singular hint in her attitude and
behaviour--that she had taken me, because she had this curious deep
need of me.

This sharply moving touch was graven into me, increasing the
tenderness of my pity, subsequently, a thousandfold. The necessity
lay in her very soul. She gave to me all she had to give, and in so
doing she tried to satisfy some hunger of her being that lay beyond
my comprehension or interpretation. For, note this--she gave herself
into my keeping, I remember, with a sigh.

It seems as of yesterday the actual moment when, urged by my vehement
desires, I made her consent to be my wife; I remember, too, the
doubt, the shame, the hesitation that made themselves felt in me
before the climax when her beauty overpowered me, sweeping reflection
utterly away. I can hear to-day the sigh, half of satisfaction, yet
half, it seemed, of pain, with which she sank into my arms at last,
as though her victory brought intense reli