frightened at the chances against me. Do you know what these days of
horror have been to me, locked in here--all alone--in the depths of
degradation for what--what I did that night--in distress and shame
unutterable----"

"My darling----"

"Wait! I had more to endure--I had to endure the results of my education
in the study of man! I had to realise that I loved one of them who has
done enough to annihilate in me anything except love. I had to learn
that he couldn't kill that--that I want him in spite of it, that I need
him, that my heart is sick with dread; that he can have me when he
will--Oh, Kathleen, I have learned to care less for him than when I
denied him for his own sake--more for him than I did before he held me
in his arms! And that is not a high type of love--I know it--but oh, if
I could only have his arms around me--if I could rest there for a
while--and not feel so frightened, so utterly alone!--I might win out; I
might kill what is menacing me, with God's help--and his!"

She lay shivering on Kathleen's breast now, dry-eyed, twisting her
ringless fingers in dumb anguish.

"Darling, darling," murmured Kathleen, "you cannot do this thing. You
cannot let him assume a burden that is yours alone."

"Why not? What is one's lover for?"

"Not to use; not to hazard; not to be made responsible for a sick mind
and a will already demoralised. Is it fair to ask him--to let him begin
life with such a burden--such a handicap? Is it not braver, fairer, to
fight it out alone, eradicate what threatens you--oh, my own darling! my
little Geraldine!--is it not fairer to the man you love? Is he not worth
striving for, suffering for? Have you no courage to endure if he is to
be the reward? Is a little selfish weakness, a miserable self-indulgence
to stand between you and life-long happiness?"

Geraldine looked up; her face was very white:

"Have you ever been tempted?"

"Have I not been to-night?"

"I mean by--something ignoble?"

"No."

"Do you know how it hurts?"

"To--to deny yourself?"

"Yes.... It is so--difficult--it makes me wretchedly weak.... I only
thought he might help me.... You are right, Kathleen.... I must be
terribly demoralised to have wished it. I--I will not marry him, now. I
don't think I ever will.... You are right. I have got to be fair to him,
no matter what he has been to me.... He has been fearfully unfair. After
all, he is only a man.... I couldn't really love a god."

CHAPT