“Surely you know how difficult it is for me?” I said.  “Things have happened so strangely,—­and we are surrounded here by influences that compel conventionality.  I cannot speak to you as frankly as I would under other circumstances.  It is easy for you to be yourself;- -you have gained the mastery over all lesser forces than your own.  But with me it is different—­perhaps when I am away I shall be able to think more calmly—­”

“You are going away?” he asked, gently.

“Yes.  It is better so.”

He remained silent.  I went on, quickly.

“I am going away because I feel inadequate and unable to cope with my present surroundings.  I have had some experience of the same influences before—­I know I have—­”

“I also!” he interrupted.

“Well, you must realise this better than I,” and I looked at him now with greater courage—­“and if you have, you know they have led to trouble.  I want you to help me.”

“I?  To help you?” he said.  “How can I help you when you leave me?”

There was something infinitely sad in his voice,—­and the old fear came over me like a chill—­’lest I should lose what I had gained!’

“If I leave you,” I said, tremblingly—­“I do so because I am not worthy to be with you!  Oh, can you not see this in me?” For as I spoke he took my hand in his and held it with a kindly clasp—­“I am so self-willed, so proud, so unworthy!  There are a thousand things I would say to you, but I dare not—­not here, or now!”

“No one will approach us,” he said, still holding my hand—­“I am keeping the others, unconsciously to themselves, at a distance till you have finished speaking.  Tell me some of these thousand things!”

I looked up at him and saw the deep lustre of his eyes filled with a great tenderness.  He drew me a little closer to his side.

“Tell me,” he persisted, softly—­“Is there very much that we do not, if we are true to each other, know already?”

“You know more than I do!” I answered—­“And I want to be equal with you!  I do!  I cannot be content to feel that I am groping in the dark weakly and blindly while you are in the light, strong and self-contained!  You can help me—­and you will help me!  You will tell me where I should go and study as you did with Aselzion!”

He started back, amazed.

“With Aselzion!  Dear, forgive me!  You are a woman!  It is impossible that you should suffer so great an ordeal,—­so severe a strain!  And why should you attempt it?  If you would let me, I would be sufficient for you.”  “But I will not let you!” I said, quickly, roused to a kind of defiant energy—­“I wish to go to the very source of your instruction, and then I shall see where I stand with regard to you!  If I stay here now—­”

“It will be the same old story over again!” he said—­“Love—­and mistrust!  Then drifting apart in the same weary way!  Is it not possible to avoid the errors of the past?”