d better go," she said. "I know that I
have committed myself, and of course I would rather be alone."

"And what would you wish that I should do?"

"Do?" she said. "What you do can be nothing to me."

"Must we be strangers, you and I, because there was a time in which
we were almost more than friends?"

"I have spoken nothing about myself, sir,--only as I have been drawn
to do so by your pretence of being love-sick. You can do nothing for
me,--nothing,--nothing. What is it possible that you should do for
me? You are not my father, or my brother." It is not to be supposed
that she wanted him to fall at her feet. It is to be supposed that
had he done so her reproaches would have been hot and heavy on
him; but yet it almost seemed to him as though he had no other
alternative. No!--He was not her father or her brother;--nor could he
be her husband. And at this very moment, as she knew, his heart was
sore with love for another woman. And yet he hardly knew how not to
throw himself at her feet, and swear, that he would return now and
for ever to his old passion, hopeless, sinful, degraded as it would
be.

"I wish it were possible for me to do something," he said, drawing
near to her.

"There is nothing to be done," she said, clasping her hands together.
"For me nothing. I have before me no escape, no hope, no prospect of
relief, no place of consolation. You have everything before you. You
complain of a wound! You have at least shown that such wounds with
you are capable of cure. You cannot but feel that when I hear your
wailings, I must be impatient. You had better leave me now, if you
please."

"And are we to be no longer friends?" he asked.

"As far as friendship can go without intercourse, I shall always be
your friend."

Then he went, and as he walked down to his office, so intent was he
on that which had just passed that he hardly saw the people as he
met them, or was aware of the streets through which his way led him.
There had been something in the later words which Lady Laura had
spoken that had made him feel almost unconsciously that the injustice
of her reproaches was not so great as he had at first felt it to be,
and that she had some cause for her scorn. If her case was such as
she had so plainly described it, what was his plight as compared with
hers? He had lost his Violet, and was in pain. There must be much
of suffering before him. But though Violet were lost, the world was
not all blank before hi