Owen withdrew his hand abashed, and for a moment sat still, his chin resting on his breast, a very picture of despair.  Nothing indeed could break the stolid calm of his features, but the violence of his emotion was evident in the quick shivering of his limbs and his short deep breaths.

“Can you give me no hope?” he said at last in a slow heavy voice.  “For God’s sake think before you answer—­you don’t know what it means to me.  It is nothing to you—­you cannot feel.  I feel, and your words cut like a knife.  I know that I am heavy and stupid, but I feel as though you had killed me.  You are heartless, quite heartless.”

Again Beatrice softened a little.  She was touched and flattered.  Where is the woman who would not have been?

“What can I say to you, Mr. Davies?” she answered in a kinder voice.  “I cannot marry you.  How I can I marry you when I do not love you?”

“Plenty of women marry men whom they do not love.”

“Then they are bad women,” answered Beatrice with energy.

“The world does not think so,” he said again; “the world calls those women bad who love where they cannot marry, and the world is always right.  Marriage sanctifies everything.”

Beatrice laughed bitterly.  “Do you think so?” she said.  “I do not.  I think that marriage without love is the most unholy of our institutions, and that is saying a good deal.  Supposing I should say yes to you, supposing that I married you, not loving you, what would it be for?  For your money and your position, and to be called a married woman, and what do you suppose I should think of myself in my heart then?  No, no, I may be bad, but I have not fallen so low as that.  Find another wife, Mr. Davies; the world is wide and there are plenty of women in it who will love you for your own sake, or who at any rate will not be so particular.  Forget me, and leave me to go my own way—­it is not your way.”

“Leave you to go your own way,” he answered almost with passion—­“that is, leave you to some other man.  Oh!  I cannot bear to think of it.  I am jealous of every man who comes near you.  Do you know how beautiful you are?  You are too beautiful—­every man must love you as I do.  Oh, if you took anybody else I think that I should kill him.”

“Do not speak like that, Mr. Davies, or I shall go.”

He stopped at once.  “Don’t go,” he said imploringly.  “Listen.  You said that you would not marry me because you did not love me.  Supposing that you learned to love me, say in a year’s time, Beatrice, would you marry me then?”

“I would marry any man whom I loved,” she answered.

“Then if you learn to love me you will marry me?”

“Oh, this is ridiculous,” she said.  “It is not probable, it is hardly possible, that such a thing should happen.  If it had been going to happen it would have happened before.”

“It might come about,” he answered; “your heart might soften towards me.  Oh, say yes to this.  It is a small request, it costs you nothing, and it gives me hope, without which I cannot live.  Say that I may ask you once more, and that then if you love me you will marry me.”