“Who does know, Mildred?  If the human race could see the pleasant surprises in store for it individually, I believe that it would drown itself en masse.  Who has not sometimes caught at the skirt of to-day and cried, ‘Stay a little—­do not let to-morrow come yet!’ You know the lines—­

        “’O temps suspends ton vol, et vous heures propices
          Suspendez votre cours,
          Laissez nous savourer les rapides delices
          Des plus beaux de nos jours.’

“Lamartine only crystallized a universal aspiration when he wrote that.”

“Oh!  Arthur, I tell you of love and happiness wide as the great sea round us, and you talk of ‘universal aspirations.’  It is the first cold breath from that grey-skied future that I fear.  Oh! dear, I wonder—­you do not know how I wonder—­if, should you ask me again, I shall ever with a clear conscience be able to say, ’Arthur, I will marry you.’”

“My dear, I asked you to be my wife last night, and what I said then I say again now.  In any case, until you dismiss me, I consider myself bound to you; but I tell you frankly that I should myself prefer that you would marry me for both our sakes.”

“How cold and correct you are, how clearly you realize the position in which I am likely to be put, and in what a gentlemanlike way you assure me that your honour will always keep you bound to me!  That is a weak thread, Arthur, in matters of the heart.  Let Angela reappear as my rival—­would honour keep you to my side?  Honour, forsooth! it is like a nurse’s bogey in the cupboard—­it is a shibboleth men use to frighten naughty women with, which for themselves is almost devoid of meaning.  Even in this light I can see your face flush at her name.  What chance shall I ever have against her?”

“Do not speak of her, Mildred; let her memory be dead between us.  She who belonged to me before God, and whom I believed in as I believe in my God, she offered me the most deadly insult that a woman can offer to a man she loves—­she sold herself.  What do I care what the price was, whether it were money, or position, or convenience, or the approbation of her surroundings?  The result is the same.  Never mention her name to me again; I tell you that I hate her.”

“What a tirade!  There is warmth enough about you now.  I shall be careful how I touch on the subject again; but your very energy shows that you are deceiving yourself.  I wish I could hear you speak of me like that, because then I should know you loved me.  Oh! if she only knew it—­she has her revenge for all your bitter words.  You are lashed to her chariot-wheels, Arthur.  You do not hate her; on the contrary, you still long to see her face; it is still your secret and most cherished hope that you will meet her again either in this or another world.  You love her as much as ever.  If she were dead, you could bear it; but the sharpest sting of your suffering lies in the humiliating sense that you are forced to worship a god you know to be false, and to give your own pure love to a woman whom you see debased.”