indeed love me so much as that? I never wanted you to love me quite so
much as that!"

It brought him back to himself, but without a start. Those sudden
returns to fact had ceased to bewilder him; they were grown so common
that he passed between dreams and reality as through tissue-paper.

"I did not mean," she said at last, in a tremor, "that I wanted you to
love me less, but I am almost sorry that you love me quite so much."

He dared say nothing, for he did not altogether understand. "I have
those fears, too, sometimes," she went on; "I have had them when I was
with you, but more often when I was alone. They come to me suddenly,
and I have such eager longings to run to you and tell you of them, and
ask you to drive them away. But I never did it; I kept them to
myself."

"You could keep something back from me, Grizel?"

"Forgive me," she implored; "I thought they would distress you, and I
had such a desire to bring you nothing but happiness. To bear them by
myself seemed to be helping you, and I was glad, I was proud, to feel
myself of use to you even to that little extent. I did not know you
had the same fears; I thought that perhaps they came only to women;
have you had them before? Fears," she continued, so wistfully, "that
it is too beautiful to end happily? Oh, have you heard a voice crying,
'It is too beautiful; it can never be'?"

He saw clearly now; he saw so clearly that he was torn with emotion.
"It is more than I can bear!" he said hoarsely. Surely he loved her.