“You love her, Stephen?”

He was quiet and firm enough now.

“I do not.  Her money will help me to become what I ought to be.  She does not care for love.  You want me to succeed, Margaret?  No one ever understood me as you did, child though you were.”

Her whole face glowed.

“I know!  I know!  I did understand you!”

She said, lower, after a little while,—­

“I knew you did not love her.”

“There is no such thing as love in real life,” he said, in his steeled voice.  “You will know that, when you grow older.  I used to believe in it once, myself.”

She did not speak, only watched the slow motion of his lips, not looking into his eyes,—­as she used to do in the old time.  Whatever secret account lay between the souls of this man and woman came out now, and stood bare on their faces.

“I used to think that I, too, loved,” he went on, in his low, hard tone.  “But it kept me back, Margaret, and”—­

He was silent.

“I know, Stephen.  It kept you back”—­

“And I put it away.  I put it away to-night, forever.”

She did not speak; stood quite quiet, her head bent on her breast.  His conscience was quite clear now.  But he almost wished he had not said it, she was such a weak, sickly thing.  She sat down at last, burying her face in her hands, with a shivering sob.  He dared not trust himself to speak again.

“I am not proud,—­as a woman ought to be,” she said, wearily, when he wiped her clammy forehead.

“You loved me, then?” he whispered.

Her face flashed at the unmanly triumph; her puny frame started up, away from him.

“I did love you, Stephen.  I love you now,—­as you might be, not as you are,—­not with those cold, inhuman eyes.  I do understand you,—­I do.  I know you for a better man than you know yourself this night.”

She turned to go.  He put his hand on her arm; something we have never seen on his face struggled up,—­the better soul that she knew.

“Come back,” he said, hoarsely; “don’t leave me with myself.  Come back, Margaret.”

She did not come; stood leaning, her sudden strength gone, against the broken wall.  There was a heavy silence.  The night throbbed slow about them.  Some late bird rose from the sedges of the pool, and with a frightened cry flapped its tired wings, and drifted into the dark.  His eyes, through the gathering shadow, devoured the weak, trembling body, met the soul that looked at him, strong as his own.  Was it because it knew and trusted him that all that was pure and strongest in his crushed nature struggled madly to be free?  He thrust it down; the self-learned lesson of years was not to be conquered in a moment.

“There have been times,” he said, in a smothered, restless voice, “when I thought you belonged to me.  Not here, but before this life.  My soul and body thirst and hunger for you, then, Margaret.”