full
passage to her grief. Presently she became aware that she was not
alone. Philip stood before her, or, rather, the wreck of him whom she
knew as Philip. Indeed, it was hard to recognize in this scared man,
with dishevelled hair, white and trembling lips, and eyes ringed round
with black, the bold, handsome youth whom she had loved. The sight of
him stayed her sorrow, and a sense of her bitter injuries rushed in
upon her.

"What do you want with me?" she asked.

"Want! I want forgiveness. I am crushed, Maria, crushed--quite
crushed," and he put his hands to his face and sobbed.

She answered him with the quiet dignity that good women can command in
moments of emergency--dignity of a very different stamp from Hilda's
haughty pride, but perhaps as impressive in its way.

"You ask forgiveness of me, and say that you are crushed. Has it
occurred to you that, without fault of my own, except the fault of
trusting you as entirely as I loved you, I too am crushed? Do you know
that you have wantonly, or to gain selfish ends, broken my heart,
blighted my name, and driven me from my home, for I can live here no
more? Do you understand that you have done me one of the greatest
injuries one person can do to another? I say, do you know all this,
Philip Caresfoot, and, knowing it, do you still ask me to forgive you?
Do you think it possible that I _can_ forgive?"

He had never heard her speak like this before, and did not remember
that intense feeling is the mother of eloquence. He gazed at her for a
moment in astonishment; then he dropped his face into his hands again
and groaned, making no other answer. After waiting awhile, she went
on--

"I am an insignificant creature, I know, and perhaps the mite of my
happiness or misery makes little difference in the scale of things;
but to me the gift of all my love was everything. I gave it to you,
Philip--gave it without a doubt or murmur, gave it with both hands. I
can never have it back to give again! How you have treated it you best
know." Here she broke down a little, and then continued: "It may seem
curious, but though my love has been so mistakenly given; though you
to whom it was given have dealt so ill with it; yet I am anxious that
on my side there should be no bitter memory, that, in looking back at
all this in after years, you should never be able to dwell upon any
harsh or unkind word of mine. It is on that account, and also because
I feel that it is not for me to ju