A little side-thought sprouted in the confusion of his brain.  It grew until it spread a bitter smile over his pale face.  “I know so little about kisses,” he said; “I am such a greenhorn at that sort of thing.  You should have had pity on my inexperience, and told me just what brand of kiss it was I was getting.  Probably I ought to have been able to distinguish, but you see I was brought up in the country—­on a farm.  They don’t have kisses in assorted varieties there.”

She bowed her head slightly.  “Yes, you are entitled to say that,” she assented.  “I was to blame, and it is quite fair that you should tell me so.  You spoke of your inexperience, your innocence.  That was why I kissed you in saying good-bye.  It was in memory of that innocence of yours, to which you yourself had been busy saying good-bye ever since I first saw you.  The idea seemed to me to mean something at the moment.  I see now that it was too subtle.  I do not usually err on that side.”

Theron kept his hold upon her gaze, as if it afforded him bodily support.  He felt that he ought to stoop and take up his hat, but he dared not look away from her.  “Do you not err now, on the side of cruelty?” he asked her piteously.

It seemed for the instant as if she were wavering, and he swiftly thrust forth other pleas.  “I admit that I did wrong to follow you to New York.  I see that now.  But it was an offence committed in entire good faith.  Think of it, Celia!  I have never seen you since that day—­that day in the woods.  I have waited—­and waited—­with no sign from you, no chance of seeing you at all.  Think what that meant to me!  Everything in the world had been altered for me, torn up by the roots.  I was a new being, plunged into a new existence.  The kiss had done that.  But until saw you again, I could not tell whether this vast change in me and my life was for good or for bad—­whether the kiss had come to me as a blessing or a curse.  The suspense was killing me, Celia!  That is why, when I learned that you were coming here, I threw everything to the winds and followed you.  You blame me for it, and I bow my head and accept the blame.  But are you justified in punishing me so terribly—­in going on after I have confessed my error, and cutting my heart into little strips, putting me to death by torture?”

“Sit down,” said Celia, with a softened weariness in her voice.  She seated herself in front of him as he sank into his chair again.  “I don’t want to give you unnecessary pain, but you have insisted on forcing yourself into a position where there isn’t anything else but pain.  I warned you to go away, but you wouldn’t.  No matter how gently I may try to explain things to you, you are bound to get nothing but suffering out of the explanation.  Now shall I still go on?”

He inclined his head in token of assent, and did not lift it again, but raised toward her a disconsolate gaze from a pallid, drooping face.