er what he owed to himself. There could never be any other woman
save Helen; but as it was not to be Helen, he could no longer, with
self-respect, continue to proffer his love only to see it slighted and
neglected. He was humble enough concerning himself, but of his love he
was very proud. Other men could give her more in wealth or position,
but no one could ever love her as he did. "He that hath more let him
give," he had often quoted to her defiantly, as though he were
challenging the world, and now he felt he must evolve a makeshift
world of his own--a world in which she was not his only spring of
acts; he must begin all over again and keep his love secret and sacred
until she understood it and wanted it. And if she should never want it
he would at least have saved it from many rebuffs and insults.

With this determination strong in him, the note Helen had left for him
after her talk with Marion, and the flowers, and the note with them,
saying she was coming to take tea on the morrow, failed to move him
except to make him more bitter. He saw in them only a tardy
recognition of her neglect--an effort to make up to him for
thoughtlessness which, from her, hurt him worse than studied slight.

A new _regime_ had begun, and he was determined to establish it
firmly and to make it impossible for himself to retreat from it; and
in the note in which he thanked Helen for the flowers and welcomed her
to tea, he declared his ultimatum.

"You know how terribly I feel," he wrote; "I don't have to tell you
that, but I cannot always go on dragging out my love and holding it up
to excite your pity as beggars show their sores. I cannot always go on
praying before your altar, cutting myself with knives and calling upon
you to listen to me. You know that there is no one else but you, and
that there never can be any one but you, and that nothing is changed
except that after this I am not going to urge and torment you. I shall
wait as I have always waited--only now I shall wait in silence. You
know just how little, in one way, I have to offer you, and you know
just how much I have in love to offer you. It is now for you to
speak--some day, or never. But you will have to speak first. You will
never hear a word of love from me again. Why should you? You know it
is always waiting for you. But if you should ever want it, you must
come to me, and take off your hat and put it on my table and say,
'Philip, I have come to stay.' Whether you can