‘I have always owed you very much.’

’There should have been some touch of chivalry if not of love to make you feel that a second passion should have been postponed for a year or two.  You could wait without growing old.  You might have allowed yourself a little space to dwell—­I was going to say on the sweetness of your memories.  But they were not sweet, Frank, they were not sweet to you.’

’These rebukes, Mabel, will rob them of their sweetness,—­for a time.’

‘It is gone; all gone,’ she said, shaking her head,—­’gone from me because I have been so easily deserted; gone from you because the change has been so easy to you.  How long was it, Frank, after you had left me before you were basking happily in the smiles of Lady Mary Palliser?’

‘It was not very long, as months go.’

‘Say days, Frank.’

’I have to defend myself, and I will do so with truth.  It was not very long,—­as months go; but why should it have been less long, whether for months or days?  I had to cure myself of a wound.’

‘To put plaster on a scratch, Frank.’

’And the sooner a man can do that the more manly he is.  Is it a sign of strength to wail under a sorrow that cannot be cured,—­or of truth to perpetuate the appearance of a woe?’

‘Has it been an appearance with me?’

’I am speaking of myself now.  I am driven to speak of myself by the bitterness of your words.  It was you who decided.’

‘You accepted my decision easily.’

’Because it was based not only on my unfitness for such a marriage, but on yours.  When I saw that there would be perhaps some years of misery for you, of course I accepted your decision.  The sweetness had been very sweet to me.’

‘Oh Frank, was it ever sweet to you?’

’And the triumph of it had been very great.  I had been assured of the love of her who among all the high ones of the world seemed to me to be the highest.  Then came your decision.  Do you really believe that I could abandon the sweetness, that I could be robbed of my triumph, that I could think I could never again be allowed to put my arm round your waist, never again feel your cheek close to mine, that I should lose all that had seemed left to me among the gods, without feeling it?’

‘Frank, Frank!’ she said, rising to her feet, and stretching out her hands as though she were going to give him back all these joys.

‘Of course I felt it.  I did not then know what was before me.’  When he said this she sank immediately back upon her seat.  ’I was wretched enough.  I had lost a limb and could not walk; my eyes, and must always hereafter be blind; my fitness to be among men, and must always hereafter be secluded.  It is so that a man is stricken down when some terrible trouble comes upon him.  But it is given to him to retrick his beams.’

‘You have retricked yours.’