“Evelyn, you cannot mean that you will never see me again?”

His eyes filled with tears, and she turned her head aside so that she might not see them.

“Life is very difficult, Owen; try not to make it more difficult.”

“Evelyn, I had hoped that our friendship would have continued to the end.  I never cared for any other woman, and when you are my age and look back, you will find that there is one, I don’t say I shall be the one, who—­” His voice trembled, and he passed his hand across his eyes.

“It’s very sad, Owen, and life is very difficult....  There is this consolation for you, that I am not sending you away on account of anyone else.  Ulick must go too.”

“That does not make it any better for me.  By God, I’d sooner that he got you than that infernal religion.  Evelyn, Evelyn, it is impossible that an idea, a mere idea, should take you from me.  It is inhuman, unnatural, I can’t realise it!”

“Owen, you must go now.”

“Evelyn, I don’t understand.  It is just as if you told me you were tallow, and would melt if there was a fire lighted.  But never mind, I’ll accept your ideas—­I’ll accept anything.  Let us be married to-morrow.”

She was frightened in the depths of her feelings, and seemed to lose all control of her will.

“Owen, I cannot marry you.  Why do you ask me?  You know it is now more than ever impossible.”

His face changed expression, but he was urged forward by an irresistible force that seemed to rise up from the bottom of his being and blind his eyes.

“You don’t love him, it was only a caprice; we’ll think no more about it.”

She sought the truth in her soul, but it seemed to elude her.  She was like a blind person in a vague, unknown space, and not being able to discover the reason why she refused him, she insisted that Ulick was the reason.

“Are you going to marry him?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Don’t you wish to?  He is your father’s friend.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Destiny, I suppose.”

The question was too profound for discussion, and they sat silent for a long while.  A chance remark turned their talk upon Balzac, and Owen spoke about Le Lys dans la Vallee, and she asked him if he remembered the day he had first spoken to her about Balzac.

“It was the day you took me to the races, our first week in Paris.”

“And a few days afterwards I took you to Madame Savelli’s.  She told you that you had the most beautiful voice she had ever heard.  You could not speak; you were so excited that I was obliged to send you off for a drive in the Bois.  Do you remember?”

“Yes, I remember....  You were always very good to me.”