"
"Must we be strangers, you and I, because there was a time in which
we were almost more than friends?"
"I have spoken nothing about myself, sir,--only as I have been drawn
to do so by your pretence of being love-sick. You can do nothing for
me,--nothing,--nothing. What is it possible that you should do for
me? You are not my father, or my brother." It is not to be supposed
that she wanted him to fall at her feet. It is to be supposed that
had he done so her reproaches would have been hot and heavy on
him; but yet it almost seemed to him as though he had no other
alternative. No!--He was not her father or her brother;--nor could he
be her husband. And at this very moment, as she knew, his heart was
sore with love for another woman. And yet he hardly knew how not to
throw himself at her feet, and swear, that he would return now and
for ever to his old passion, hopeless, sinful, degraded as it would
be.
"I wish it were possible for me to do something," he said, drawing
near to her.
"There is nothing to be done," she said, clasping her hands together.
"For me nothing. I have before me no escape, no hope, no prospect of
relief, no place of consolation. You have everything before you. You
complain of a wound! You have at least shown that such wounds with
you are capable of cure.
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