“I think I am beginning to see what sort of woman you are—­what sort of a being a woman may be.  You love me, Phyllis, and yet you will send me away from you lest you should do Ella a wrong?”

“I implore of you to go away from me, because if Ella had been free a month ago as she is to-day, she would have married you.”

“But she fancied that she loved me a month ago.  She knows that she does not love me now.  You love me—­you, Phyllis, my love, my beloved; you dare not say that when you led me to love you, you were not led unthinkingly to love me yourself.  Will you deny that, my darling?”

He had strode passionately up to her, and before she could resist he had put his arms about her and was kissing her on the face.  For a moment only she resisted, then she submitted to his kisses.

“You are mine—­mine—­mine!” he whispered, and she knew that she was.  She now knew how to account for the brilliant successes of the man in places where every other civilized man had perished.  He was a master of men.  “You love me, darling, and I love you.  What shall separate us?”

With a little cry she freed herself.

“You have said the truth!” she cried; “the bitter truth.  I love you!  I love you!  I love you!  You are my love, my darling, my king forever.  But I tell you to go from me.  I tell you that I shall never steal from any sister what is hers by right.  I would have sacrificed myself—­I did not love you then—­to keep you from her; I am now ready to sacrifice myself—­now that I love you—­to give you to her.  Ah, my love, my own dear love, you know me, and you know that I should hate myself—­that I should hate you, too, if I were to marry you, now that she is free.  Go, my beloved—­go!”

He looked at her face made beautiful with tears.  “Let me plead with you, Phyllis.  Let me say—­”

“Oh, go! go! go!”

He put out his hand to her.

“I am going!” he said.  “I am leaving England, but from day to day I shall let you know where I am, so that you can send to me when you want me to return to you.  Write on a paper, ‘Come to me,’ and I will come, though years should pass before I read those words.  I deserve to suffer, as I know I shall suffer.”

He held out his hand.  She took it.  Her tears fell upon it.  She did not speak as he went to the door.  Then she gave a cry like the cry of a wounded animal.  She held out her hands to him.

“Not yet!  Not yet!” she said.

She flung herself into his arms, kissing him and kissing him, holding him to her with her arms about his neck.

“Good-by!  Good-by, my darling, my best beloved.  Oh, go!  Go, Herbert, before I die in your arms.  Go!”

She was lying along the floor with her head on the sofa.

He was gone.

She looked wildly around the room, wiping the tears from her eyes.  She sprang to her feet, crying: 

“Come back!  Come back to me, my beloved!  Oh, I was a fool!  Such a fool as women are when they think of such things as heaven and truth and right!  A fool!  A fool!”