ing up.

"I don't know,"--she said just above her breath.

"How could you do so?"

Well, it suited him well to reproach her! What matter? Things could not
be more bitter than they were. She did not try to answer.

"You have ruined both our lives. _Mine_ is ruined; I am ruined. I shall
never be worth anything now. I don't care what becomes of me."

As she still did not answer, he looked up, and their eyes met. Once
meeting, they could not quit each other. Diana's gaze was sad enough,
but eager with the eagerness of long hunger. His was sharp with pain at
first, keen with unreasonable anger; one of the mind's resorts from
unbearable torment. Then as he looked it changed and grew soft; and
finally, springing up, he went over to where she sat, dropped on his
knees before her, and seizing her hands kissed them one after the other
till tears began to mingle with the kisses. She was passive; she could
not drive him off; she felt that she and he must have this one moment
to bury their past in; it was only when her hands were growing wet with
his tears that she roused herself to an effort.

"Evan--Evan--listen to me! You mustn't--remember, I am a man's wife."

"How could you?"

"I did not know what I was doing."

"Have you given up loving me?"

"What is the use of talking of it, Evan? I am another man's wife."

"But there are such things as divorces."

"Hush! Do not speak of such a thing."

"I must speak of it. Whom do you love? tell me that first."

"No one has a right to ask me such a question."

"_I_ have a right," cried the young man; "for I have been deceived,
cheated, robbed of my own; and I have a right to get back my own.
Diana, speak! do you love me less than you used to do? Tell me that."

"I do not change, Evan."

"Then you have no business to be anybody's wife but mine. Nothing can
hinder _that_, Diana."

"Stop! You are not to speak so. I will not hear it."

"You are mine, Diana."

"I _was_ yours, Evan!" she said tenderly, bending her head over him
till her lips touched his hair. "We have been parted, and it is
over--over for this world. You must go your way, and I must go mine.
And you must not say, I am ruined."

"Do not you say it?"

"I must not."

"It is the truth for me, if I do not have you with me."

"It is not the truth," she said with infinite tenderness in her manner.
"Not ruined, Evan. We can go our way and do our work, even if we are
not happy. _That_ is another thing."

"