r-toothed ages,
and are now men and women. I perfectly understood your breaking away
from me. I understood you, and in spite of my sorrow knew that you
were right. I am not going to accuse or to defend myself; but I knew
that you were right."

"Then let there be no more about it."

"Yes; there must be more about it. I did not understand you when you
accepted Mr Grey. Against him I have not a whisper to make. He may
be perfect for aught I know. But, knowing you as I thought I did, I
could not understand your loving such a man as him. It was as though
one who had lived on brandy should take himself suddenly to a milk
diet,--and enjoy the change! A milk diet is no doubt the best. But
men who have lived on brandy can't make those changes very suddenly.
They perish in the attempt."

"Not always, George."

"It may be done with months of agony;--but there was no such agony
with you."

"Who can tell?"

"But you will tell me the cure was made. I thought so, and therefore
thought that I should find you changed. I thought that you, who had
been all fire, would now have turned yourself into soft-flowing milk
and honey, and have become fit for the life in store for you. With
such a one I might have travelled from Moscow to Malta without
danger. The woman fit to be John Grey's wife would certainly do
me no harm,--could not touch my happiness. I might have loved her
once,--might still love the memory of what she had been; but her, in
her new form, after her new birth,--such a one as that, Alice, could
be nothing to me. Don't mistake me. I have enough of wisdom in me to
know how much better, ay, and happier a woman she might be. It was
not that I thought you had descended in the scale; but I gave you
credit for virtues which you have not acquired. Alice, that wholesome
diet of which I spoke is not your diet. You would starve on it, and
perish."

He had spoken with great energy, but still in a low voice, having
turned full round upon the table, with both his arms upon it, and his
face stretched out far over towards her. She was looking full at him;
and, as I have said before, that scar and his gloomy eyes and thick
eyebrows seemed to make up the whole of his face. But the scar had
never been ugly to her. She knew the story, and when he was her lover
she had taken pride in the mark of the wound. She looked at him, but
though he paused she did not speak. The music of the river was still
in her ears, and there came upon her a st