shall go away, and grieve over you, of course, and feel bereaved for months, as if I could never possibly again love any man.  At present it seems to me I never could love him.  But though my heart tells me that, my reason tells me I should some day find some other soul I might perhaps fall back upon.  But it would only be falling back.  For the sake of my principles alone, and of the example I wish to set the world, could I ever fall back upon any other.  Yet fall back I would.  And what good would you have done me then by refusing me?  You would merely have cast me off from the man I love best, the man who I know by immediate instinct, which is the voice of nature and of God within us, was intended from all time for me.  The moment I saw you my heart beat quicker; my heart’s evidence told me you were the one love meant for me.  Why force me to decline upon some other less meet for me?”

Alan gazed at her, irresolute.  “But if you love me so much,” he said, “surely, surely, it is a small thing to trust your future to me.”

The tenderness of woman let her hand glide over his cheek.  She was not ashamed of her love.  “O Alan,” she cried, “if it were only for myself, I could trust you with my life; I could trust you with anything.  But I haven’t only myself to think of.  I have to think of right and wrong; I have to think of the world; I have to think of the cause which almost wholly hangs upon me.  Not for nothing are these impulses implanted in my breast.  They are the voice of the soul of all women within me.  If I were to neglect them for the sake of gratifying your wishes,—­if I were to turn traitor to my sex for the sake of the man I love, as so many women have turned before me, I should hate and despise myself.  I couldn’t love you, Alan, quite so much, loved I not honor more, and the battle imposed upon me.”

Alan wavered as she spoke.  He felt what she said was true; even if he refused to take her on the only terms she could accept, he would not thereby save her.  She would turn in time and bestow herself upon some man who would perhaps be less worthy of her,—­nay even on some man who might forsake her in the sequel with unspeakable treachery.  Of conduct like that, Alan knew himself incapable.  He knew that if he took Herminia once to his heart, he would treat her with such tenderness, such constancy, such devotion as never yet was shown to living woman. (Love always thinks so.) But still, he shrank from the idea of being himself the man to take advantage of her; for so in his unregenerate mind he phrased to himself their union.  And still he temporized.  “Even so, Herminia,” he cried, bending forward and gazing hard at her, “I couldn’t endure to have it said it was I who misled you.”

Herminia lifted her eyes to his with just a tinge of lofty scorn, tempered only by the womanliness of those melting lashes.  “And you can think of that?” she murmured, gazing across at him half in tears.  “O Alan, for my part I can think of nothing now but the truths of life and the magnitude of the issues.  Our hearts against the world,—­love and duty against convention.”