circumstances--a change of conditions--of
relations--made it simply wrong for him to cherish it any more it wasn't
one-fourth or one-tenth so much the unrighteousness as the ignobility of
the thing that tortured him and tortured him, until one day what does he
up and do but turn over a new leaf. Do I speak too low?"

"No, go on, Mr. March."

"Well, for about twenty-four hours he thought he had done something
noble. Then he found that was just what it wasn't. It never is; else
turning over new leaves would be easy! He didn't get his new leaf turned
over. He tried; he tried his best."

"That's all God asks," murmured Barbara.

"What?"

"Nothing. Please don't stop. How'd it turn out?"

"O bad! He put himself out of sight and reach and went on trying, till
one day--one night--without intention or expectation, he found her when,
by the baseness--no, I won't say that, but--yes, I will!--by the
baseness of another, she was all at once the fit object of all the pity
and the sort of love that belongs with pity, which any heart can give."

"And he gave them!"

"Yes, he gave _them_. But the old feeling--whatever it was----" John
hesitated.

"Go on. Please don't stop."

"The--the old feeling--went out--right there--like a candle in the wind.
No, not that way, quite, but like a lamp drinking the last of its oil.
Where he lodged that night----"

"Yes----"

"--He heard a clock strike every hour; and at the break of day
that--feeling--whatever it was--with the only real good excuse to live
it ever had--was dead."

"And that wasn't true love? Don't you believe it was?"

"Do you, Miss Barbara Garnet? Could true love lie down and give up the
ghost at such a time and on such a pretext as that? Could it? Could it?"

"I think--O--I think it--you'll forgive me if----"

"Forgive! Why, how can you offend _me_? You don't imagine----"

"O no! I forgot. Well I think the love was true in degree; not the very
truest. It was only _first_ love; but it was the first love of a true
heart."

"To be followed by a later and truer love, you think?"

"You shouldn't--O I don't know, Mr. March. What do you think?"

"Never! That's what I think. He may find refuge in friendship. I believe
such a soul best fitted for that deep, pure friendship so much talked of
and so rarely realized between man and woman. Such a heart naturally
seeks it. Not with a mere hunger for comfort----"

"O no."

"--But because it has that to give which it ca