Unorna sighed, partly, perhaps, that he might hear the sigh, and put upon it an interpretation soothing to his vanity, but partly, too, from a sincere regret that he should need to suffer as he was evidently suffering.  She had half believed that she loved him, and she owed him pity.  Women’s hearts pay such debts unwillingly, but they do pay them, nevertheless.  She wished that she had never set eyes upon Israel Kafka; she wished that she might never see him again; even his death would hardly have cost her a pang, and yet she was sorry for him.  Diana, the huntress, shot her arrows with unfailing aim; Diana, the goddess, may have sighed and shed one bright immortal tear, as she looked into the fast-glazing eyes of the dying stag—­may not Diana, the maiden, have felt a touch of human sympathy and pain as she listened to the deep note of her hounds baying on poor Actaeon’s track!  No one is all bad, or all good.  No woman is all earthly, nor any goddess all divine.

“I am sorry,” said Unorna.  “You will not understand——­”

“I have understood enough.  I have understood that a woman can have two faces and two hearts, two minds, two souls; it is enough, my understanding need go no farther.  You sighed before you spoke.  It was not for me; it was for yourself.  You never felt pain or sorrow for another.”

He was trying hard to grow cold and to find cold words to say, which might lead her to believe him stronger than he was and able to master his grief.  But he was too young, too hot, too changeable for such a part.  Moreover, in his first violent outbreak Unorna had dominated him, and he could not now regain the advantage.

“You are wrong, Israel Kafka.  You would make me less than human.  If I sighed, it was indeed for you.  See—­I confess that I have done you wrong, not in deeds, but in letting you hope.  Truly, I myself have hoped also.  I have thought that the star of love was trembling just below the east, and that you and I might be one to another—­what we cannot be now.  My wisdom has failed me, my sight has been deceived.  Am I the only woman in this world who has been mistaken?  Can you not forgive?  If I had promised, if I had said one word—­and yet, you are right, too, for I have let you think in earnest what has been but a passing dream of my own thoughts.  It was all wrong; it was all my fault.  There, lay your hand in mine and say that you forgive, as I ask forgiveness.”

He was still standing behind her, leaning against the back of her chair.  Without looking round she raised her hand above her shoulder as though seeking for his.  But he would not take it.

“Is it so hard?” she asked softly.  “Is it even harder for you to give than for me to ask?  Shall we part like this—­not to meet again—­each bearing a wound, when both might be whole?  Can you not say the word?”

“What is it to you whether I forgive you or not?”

“Since I ask it, believe that it is much to me,” she answered, slowly turning her head until, without catching sight of his face, she could just see where his fingers were resting on her chair.  Then, over her shoulder, she touched them, and drew them to her cheek.  He made no resistance.