little half-born doubt.

"Yes," she said. "It is better to think so. Then we need think of no
other change."

"There is no other possible," he answered, gently pressing the shoulder
upon which his hand was resting. "We have not waited and believed, and
trusted and loved, for seven years, to wake at last--face to face as
we are to-day--and to find that we have trusted vainly and loved two
shadows, I yours, and you mine, to find at the great moment of all that
we are not ourselves, the selves we knew, but others of like passions
but of less endurance. Have we, beloved? And if we could love, and
trust, and believe without each other, each alone, is it not all the
more sure that we shall be unchanging together? It must be so. The whole
is greater than its parts, two loves together are greater and stronger
than each could be of itself. The strength of two strands close twined
together is more than twice the strength of each."

She said nothing. By merest chance he had said words that had waked
the doubt again, so that it grew a little and took a firmer hold in her
unwilling heart. To love a shadow, he had said, to wake and find self
not self at all. That was what might come, would come, must come,
sooner or later, said the doubt. What matter where, or when, or how? The
question came again, vaguely, faintly as a mere memory, but confidently
as though knowing its own answer. Had she not rested in his arms, and
felt his kisses and heard his voice? What matter how, indeed? It matters
greatly, said the growing doubt, rearing its head and finding speech at
last. It matters greatly, it said, for love lies not alone in voice,
and kiss, and gentle touch, but in things more enduring, which to endure
must be sound and whole and not cankered to the core by a living lie.
Then came the old reckless reasoning again: Am I not I? Is he not he? Do
I not love him with my whole strength? Does he not love this very self
of mine, here as it is, my head upon his shoulder, my hand within his
hand? And if he once loved another, have I not her place, to have and
hold, that I may be loved in her stead? Go, said the doubt, growing
black and strong; go, for you are nothing to him but a figure in his
dream, disguised in the lines of one he really loved and loves; go
quickly, before it is too late, before that real Beatrice comes and
wakes him and drives you out of the kingdom you usurp.

But she knew it was only a doubt, and had it been the truth, and