"You-you have always been good to me," she answered. "I have never
deserved it--I have never understood it. If it is any satisfaction for
you to know that what I have saved of myself I owe to you, I tell you so
freely."

"That," he said, "is something for which God forbid that I should take
credit. What you are is due to the development of a germ within you, a
development in which I have always had faith. I came here to see you, I
came here because I love you, because I have always loved you, Honora."

"Oh, no, not that!" she cried; "not that!"

"Why not?" he asked. "It is something I cannot help, something beyond my
power to prevent if I would. But I would not. I am proud of it, and I
should be lost without it. I have had it always. I have come over to beg
you to marry me."

"It's impossible! Can't you see it's impossible?"

"You don't love me?" he said. Into those few words was thrown all the
suffering of his silent years.

"I don't know what I feel for you," she answered in an agonized voice,
her fingers tightening over the backs of her white hands. "If reverence
be love--if trust be love, infinite and absolute trust--if gratitude be
love--if emptiness after you are gone be a sign of it--yes, I love you.
If the power to see clearly only through you, to interpret myself only by
your aid be love, I acknowledge it. I tell you so freely, as of your
right to know. And the germ of which you spoke is you. You have grown
until you have taken possession of--of what is left of me. If I had only