“Mademoiselle,” he said, simply, when he had raised himself, “I come to tell you that I love you.”

The glance, slightly oblique, of suspended expression with which she received the words encouraged him to continue.

“I know how far what I have to give is beneath the honor of your acceptance; and yet when men love they are impelled to offer all the little that they have.  My one hope lies in the fact that a woman like you doesn’t love a man for what he is—­but for what she can make him.”

The words were admirably chosen, reaching her heart with a force greater than he knew.

“A woman,” she answered, with a certain stately uplifting of the head, “can only make a man that which he has already the power to become.  She may be able to point out the way; but it’s for him to follow it.”

“I don’t think you’d see me hesitate at that.”

“I’m glad you say so; because the road I should have to ask you to take would be a hard one.”

“The harder the better, if it’s anything by which I can prove my love.”

“It is; but it’s not only that; it’s something by which you could prove mine.”

His face brightened.

“In that case, Mademoiselle—­speak.”

She took an instant to assemble her forces, standing before him with a calmness she did not feel.

“You must forgive me,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady, “if I take the initiative, as no girl is often called upon to do.  Perhaps I should hesitate more if you hadn’t told me, two years ago, what I know you’ve come to repeat to-day.  The fact that I’ve waited those two years to hear you say it gives me a right that otherwise I shouldn’t claim.”

He bowed.

“There are no rights that a woman can have over a man which you, Mademoiselle, do not possess over me.”

“Before telling me again,” she continued, speaking with difficulty, “what you’ve told me already, I want to say that I can only listen to it on one condition.”

“Which is—?”

“That your own conscience is at peace with itself.”

There was a sudden startled toss of the head, but he answered, bravely: 

“Is one’s conscience ever at peace with itself?  A woman’s, perhaps; but a man’s—!”

He shook his head with that wistful smile of contrition which is already a plea for pardon.

“I’m not speaking of life in general, but of something in particular.  I want you to understand, before you ask me—­what you’ve come to ask, that you couldn’t make one woman happy while you’re doing another a great wrong.”

He was sure now of what was in store for him, and braced himself for his part.  He was one of those men who need but to see peril to see also the way of meeting it.  He stood for a minute, very straight and erect, like a soldier before a court-martial—­a culprit whose guilt is half excused by his very manliness.

“I have wronged women.  They’ve wronged me, too.  All I can do to show I’m sorry for it is—­not to give them the same sort of offence again.”