’Accept?  How can you refuse?  It is my right, it is my will!  Would you refuse me this one poor chance of proving that my love was unselfish?  I would have killed myself to win a tender look from you at the last moment, and you shall not go away thinking less of me than I deserve.  You know already that I am not the idle powerless woman you once thought me; you shall know that I can do yet more.  If she is noble in your eyes, can I consent to be less so?’

Passion the most exalted possessed her.  It infected Wilfrid.  He felt that the common laws of intercourse between man and woman had here no application; the higher ground to which she summoned him knew no authority of the conventional.  To hang his head was to proclaim his own littleness.

‘You are not less noble, Beatrice,’ his voice murmured.

’You have said it.  So there is no longer a constraint between us.  How simple it is to do for love’s sake what those who do not know love think impossible.  I will see her, then the last difficulty is removed.  That letter has told me where she lives.  If I go there to-day, I shall find her?’

‘Not till the evening,’ Wilfrid replied under his breath.

‘When is your marriage?’

He looked at her without speaking.

‘Very soon?  Before the end of the session?’

‘The day after to-morrow.’

She was white to the lips, but kept her eyes on him steadily.

‘And you go away at once?’

’I had thought’—­he began; then added, ‘Yes, at once; it is better.’

’Yes, better.  Your friend stays and makes all ready for your return.  Perhaps I shall not see you after to-day, for that time.  Then we are to each ether what we used to be.  You will bring her to hear me sing?  I shall not give it up now.’

She smiled, moved a little away from him, then turned again and gave her hand for leave-taking.

‘Wilfrid!’

‘Beatrice?’

‘She would not grudge it me.  Kiss me—­the last time—­on my lips!’

He kissed her.  When the light came again to his eyes, Beatrice had gone.

In the evening Emily sat expectant.  Either Wilfrid would come or there would be a letter from him; yes. he would come; for, after reading what she had written, the desire to speak with her must be strong in him.  She sat at her window and looked along the dull street.

She had spent the day as usual—­that is to say, in the familiar school routine; but the heart she had brought to her work was far other than that which for long years had laboriously pulsed the flagging moments of her life.  Her pupils were no longer featureless beings, the sole end of whose existence was to give trouble; girl-children and budding womanhood had circled about her; the lips which recited lessons made unconscious music; the eyes, dark or sunny, laughed with secret foresight of love to come.  Kindly affection to one and all grew warm within her; what