With this determination strong in him, the note Helen had left
for him after her talk with Marion, and the flowers, and the note
with them, saying she was coming to take tea on the morrow,
failed to move him except to make him more bitter. He saw in
them only a tardy recognition of her neglect--an effort to make
up to him for thoughtlessness which, from her, hurt him worse
than studied slight.

A new regime had begun, and he was determined to establish it
firmly and to make it impossible for himself to retreat from it;
and in the note in which he thanked Helen for the flowers and
welcomed her to tea, he declared his ultimatum.

"You know how terribly I feel," he wrote; "I don't have to tell
you that, but I cannot always go on dragging out my love and
holding it up to excite your pity as beggars show their sores. I
cannot always go on praying before your altar, cutting myself
with knives and calling upon you to listen to me. You know
that there is no one else but you, and that there never can be
any one but you, and that nothing is changed except that after
this I am not going to urge and torment you. I shall wait as I
have always waited--only now I shall wait in silence. You know
just how little, in one way, I have to offer you, and you know
just how much I have in love to offer you. It is now for you to
speak--some day, or never. But you will have to speak first.
You will never hear a word of love from me again. Why should
you? You know it is always waiting for you. But if you should
ever want it, you must come to me, and take off your hat and put
it on my table and say, 'Philip, I have come to stay.' Whether
you can ever do that or not can make no difference in my love for