But Maria could control herself no longer:  her own blasted prospects, the loss of the man she loved, and the affecting scene through which she had just passed, all helped to break her down.  Running downstairs into the dining-room, she threw herself on a sofa, and gave full passage to her grief.  Presently she became aware that she was not alone.  Philip stood before her, or, rather, the wreck of him whom she knew as Philip.  Indeed, it was hard to recognize in this scared man, with dishevelled hair, white and trembling lips, and eyes ringed round with black, the bold, handsome youth whom she had loved.  The sight of him stayed her sorrow, and a sense of her bitter injuries rushed in upon her.

“What do you want with me?” she asked.

“Want!  I want forgiveness.  I am crushed, Maria, crushed—­quite crushed,” and he put his hands to his face and sobbed.

She answered him with the quiet dignity that good women can command in moments of emergency—­dignity of a very different stamp from Hilda’s haughty pride, but perhaps as impressive in its way.

“You ask forgiveness of me, and say that you are crushed.  Has it occurred to you that, without fault of my own, except the fault of trusting you as entirely as I loved you, I too am crushed?  Do you know that you have wantonly, or to gain selfish ends, broken my heart, blighted my name, and driven me from my home, for I can live here no more?  Do you understand that you have done me one of the greatest injuries one person can do to another?  I say, do you know all this, Philip Caresfoot, and, knowing it, do you still ask me to forgive you?  Do you think it possible that I can forgive?”

He had never heard her speak like this before, and did not remember that intense feeling is the mother of eloquence.  He gazed at her for a moment in astonishment; then he dropped his face into his hands again and groaned, making no other answer.  After waiting awhile, she went on—­

“I am an insignificant creature, I know, and perhaps the mite of my happiness or misery makes little difference in the scale of things; but to me the gift of all my love was everything.  I gave it to you, Philip—­gave it without a doubt or murmur, gave it with both hands.  I can never have it back to give again!  How you have treated it you best know.”  Here she broke down a little, and then continued:  “It may seem curious, but though my love has been so mistakenly given; though you to whom it was given have dealt so ill with it; yet I am anxious that on my side there should be no bitter memory, that, in looking back at all this in after years, you should never be able to dwell upon any harsh or unkind word of mine.  It is on that account, and also because I feel that it is not for me to judge you, and that you have already much to bear, that I do as you ask me, and say, ’Philip, from my heart I forgive you, as I trust that the Almighty may forgive me.’”

He flung himself upon his knees before her, and tried to take her hand.  “You do not know how you have humbled me,” he groaned.