to supper at the Gibsons' lodgings, and Barty sat opposite
Leah, and drank in the beauty of her face, which had so wonderfully
ripened and accentuated and individualized itself since he had seen
her last, three years before.

As he discreetly gazed, whenever she was not looking his way, saying
to himself, like Geraint: "'Here by God's rood is the one maid for
me,'" he suddenly felt the north, and started with a kind of terror
as he remembered Martia. He bade the company a hasty good-night, and
went for a long walk by the Rhine, and had a long talk with his
Egeria.

"Martia," said he, in a low but audible voice, "it's no good, I
_can't_; c'est plus fort que moi. I can't sell myself to a woman for
gold; besides, I can't fall in love with Julia; I don't know why,
but I _can't_; I will never marry her. I don't deserve that she
should care for me; perhaps she doesn't, perhaps you're quite
mistaken, and if she does, it's only a young girl's fancy. What does
a girl of that age really know about her own heart? and how base I
should be to take advantage of her innocence and inexperience!"

And then he went on in a passionate and eager voice to explain all
he had thought of during the day and still further defend his
recalcitrancy.

"Give me at least your reasons, Martia; tell me, for God's sake, who
you are and what! Are you _me_? are you the spirit of my mother? Why
do you love me, as you say you do, with a love passing the love of
woman? What am I to you? Why are you so bent on worldly things?"

This monologue lasted more than an hour, and he threw himself on to
his bed quite worn out, and slept at once, in spite of the
nightingales, who filled the starlit, breezy, balmy night with their
shrill, sweet clamor.

Next morning, as he expected, he found a letter:

"Barty, you are ruining me and breaking my life, and wrecking the
plans of many years--plans made before you were, born or thought of.

"Who am I, indeed? Who is this demure young black-eyed witch that
has come between us, this friend of Ida Maurice's?

"She's the cause of all my misery, I feel sure; with Ida's eyes I
saw you look at her; you never yet looked at Julia like that!--never
at any woman before!

"Who is she? No mate for a man like you, I feel sure. In the first
place, she is not rich; I could tell that by the querulous
complaints of her middle-class mother. She's just fit to be some
pious Quaker's wife,