But as for Herminia, though she listened with affection and with a

faint thrill of pleasure to much that he said, seeing how deeply he

loved her, she leaned back from time to time, half weary with his

eagerness, and his consequent iteration. "Dear Alan," she said at

last, soothing his hand with her own, as a sister might have

soothed it, "you talk about all this as though it were to me some

new resolve, some new idea of my making. You forget it is the

outcome of my life's philosophy. I have grown up to it slowly.

I have thought of all this, and of hardly anything else, ever since

I was old enough to think for myself about anything. Root and

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branch, it is to me a foregone conclusion. I love you. You love

me. So far as I am concerned, there ends the question. One way

there is, and one way alone, in which I can give myself up to you.

Make me yours if you will; but if not, then leave me. Only,

remember, by leaving me, you won't any the more turn me aside from

my purpose. You won't save me from myself, as you call it; you

will only hand me over to some one less fit for me by far than you

are." A quiet moisture glistened in her eyes, and she gazed at him

pensively. "How wonderful it is," she went on, musing. "Three

weeks ago, I didn't know there was such a man in the world at all

as you; and now--why, Alan, I feel as if the world would be nothing

to me without you. Your name seems to sing in my ears all day long

with the song of the birds, and to thrill through and through me as

I lie awake on my pillow with the cry of the nightjar. Yet, if you

won't take me on my own terms, I know well what will happen. I

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?"




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