eft me breathless and a little afraid to be
myself,--as if I had killed a dear thing,--and tearful, too, and
spasmodic for your sympathy and sanction.

I told him that for a long time I did not understand, supposing myself
beloved and desired and chosen for him by God, thinking he yearned for
the subtlety and mystery of me, thinking all of him needed me and
cleaved earths and parted seas to come to me. Later, when I became
oppressed by a lack and was made to hear the stillness that followed my
unechoed words, I became grave and still myself. He had unloved me, I
said, and I waited. Something seemed pending, and meanwhile I could
love! I made much of every word of comfort that he dropped me, and dwelt
with hope on the future. All this I told Herbert the night when I
explained, and he turned pale. "You people fly away with yourselves. I
cannot follow you. What is wrong, Hester?" He smiled in his distress.
Yet was there in his softness an imperiousness, commanding me to be
other than I am, forbidding me the right to crave in secret what I had
made bold to ask for openly. His man was stronger than my woman, and I
leapt to him again. "My husband," I whispered, my hands in his. This,
even after I understood, dearest Mr. Kempton.

It is a sorry tangle. If only one could suit feeling to theory! It is
not for a theory that I refuse to be Herbert's wife. Yet if I loved him
enough, I could give up love itself for him. He hinted it, looking as
from a distance at me in my attitude of protest and restraint. If I
loved him enough, I could forego love itself for him. Somewhere there is
a fault, it would seem, somewhere in my abandon is restraint, in my
love, self-seeking. Remorse overcame me just as he was about to leave,
and I schooled myself to think that there had been no affront, that it
honours a woman to be wanted no matter for what end, that every use is a
noble use, that we die the same, loved or used. If Herbert Wace wants a
wife and thinks me fitting, why, it is well. I thought all this and aged
as I thought. Nevertheless, my hand did not put itself out a second time
to detain the man who had forced me to face this.

There is a youth here who loves me. If Herbert's face could shine like
his for one hour, I believe I would be happier than I have ever been.
And it would not spoil that happiness if this love were toward another
than myself. Say you believe me. You must know it of me that before
everything else in the world I p