ere is no sacrifice possible for me that I
should ever regret. Our love is what we choose to make it. Regard it as
a foolish pastime, and we are no better than the vulgar crowd--we know
how they speak of it. What detestable thoughts your words brought to my
mind! Have you not heard men and women, those who have outlived such
glimpses of high things as nature ever sent them, making a jest of love
in young lives, treating it, from the height of their wisdom forsooth,
as a silly dream of boys and girls? If we ever live to speak or think
like that, it will indeed be time to have done with the world. Even as I
love you now, my heart's darling, I shall love you when years of
intimacy are like some happy journey behind us, and on into the very
portal of death. Regret! How paltry all will seem that was not of the
essence of our love! And who knows how short our time may be? When the
end comes, will it be easy to bear, the thought that we lost one day,
one moment of union, out of respect for idle prejudices which vanish as
soon as they find themselves ineffectual? Will not the longest life be
all too short for us?'

'Forgive me the words, dear. Love is no less sacred to me.'

Her senses were playing the traitor; or--which you will--were seconding
love's triumph.

'I shall come home with you now,' he said. 'You will let me?'

Why was he not content to win her promise? This proposal, by reminding
her most strongly of the inevitable difficulties her marriage would
entail, forced her again into resistance.

'Not now, Wilfrid. I have not said a word of this; I must prepare them
for it.'

'You have not spoken of me?'

'I would not do so till I--till everything was more certain.'

'Certain!' he cried impatiently. 'Why do you torture me so, Emily? What
uncertainty is there? Everything is uncertain, if you like to make it
so. Is there something in your mind that I do not understand?'

'You must remember, Wilfrid, that this is a strange, new thing in my
life. It has come to me so suddenly, that even yet I cannot make it part
of my familiar self. It has been impossible to speak of it to others.'

'Do you think I take it as a matter of course? Is your love less a magic
gift to me? I wake in a terror lest I have only dreamed of it; but then
the very truth comes back, and shall I make myself miserable with
imagining uncertainties, when there need be none?'

Emily hesitated before speaking again.

'I have told you very little abo