‘Say ashamed of me at once,’ she bitterly answered.

‘I am ashamed of you,’ he retorted angrily; ’the mood has not left you yet, then?’

‘Owen,’ she said, and paused.  Her lip trembled; her eye told of sensations too deep for tears.  ’No, Owen, it has not left me; and I will be honest.  I own now to you, without any disguise of words, what last night I did not own to myself, because I hardly knew of it.  I love Edward Springrove with all my strength, and heart, and soul.  You call me a wanton for it, don’t you?  I don’t care; I have gone beyond caring for anything!’ She looked stonily into his face and made the speech calmly.

‘Well, poor Cytherea, don’t talk like that!’ he said, alarmed at her manner.

‘I thought that I did not love him at all,’ she went on hysterically.  ’A year and a half had passed since we met.  I could go by the gate of his garden without thinking of him—­look at his seat in church and not care.  But I saw him this morning—­dying because he loves me so—­I know it is that!  Can I help loving him too?  No, I cannot, and I will love him, and I don’t care!  We have been separated somehow by some contrivance—­I know we have.  O, if I could only die!’

He held her in his arms.  ‘Many a woman has gone to ruin herself,’ he said, ’and brought those who love her into disgrace, by acting upon such impulses as possess you now.  I have a reputation to lose as well as you.  It seems that do what I will by way of remedying the stains which fell upon us, it is all doomed to be undone again.’  His voice grew husky as he made the reply.

The right and only effective chord had been touched.  Since she had seen Edward, she had thought only of herself and him.  Owen—­her name—­position—­future—­had been as if they did not exist.

‘I won’t give way and become a disgrace to you, at any rate,’ she said.

’Besides, your duty to society, and those about you, requires that you should live with (at any rate) all the appearance of a good wife, and try to love your husband.’

‘Yes—­my duty to society,’ she murmured.  ’But ah, Owen, it is difficult to adjust our outer and inner life with perfect honesty to all!  Though it may be right to care more for the benefit of the many than for the indulgence of your own single self, when you consider that the many, and duty to them, only exist to you through your own existence, what can be said?  What do our own acquaintances care about us?  Not much.  I think of mine.  Mine will now (do they learn all the wicked frailty of my heart in this affair) look at me, smile sickly, and condemn me.  And perhaps, far in time to come, when I am dead and gone, some other’s accent, or some other’s song, or thought, like an old one of mine, will carry them back to what I used to say, and hurt their hearts a little that they blamed me so soon.  And they will pause just for an instant, and give a sigh to me, and think, “Poor girl!”