“You remember how we parted, Unorna?” said Kafka.  “It is a month to-day.  I did not expect a greeting of you when I came back, or, if I did expect it, I was foolish and unthinking.  I should have known you better.  I should have known that there is one half of your word which you never break—­the cruel half, and one thing which you cannot forgive, and which is my love for you.  And yet that is the very thing which I cannot forget.  I have come back to tell you so.  You may as well know it.”

Unorna’s expression grew cold, as she saw that he abandoned the strain of reproach and spoke once more of his love for her.

“Yes, I see what you mean,” he said, very quietly.  “You mean to show me by your face that you give me no hope.  I should have known that by other things I have seen here.  God knows, I have seen enough!  But I meant to find you alone.  I went to your home, I saw you go out, I followed you, I entered here—­I heard all—­and I understood, for I know your power, as this man cannot know it.  Do you wonder that I followed you?  Do you despise me?  Do you think I still care, because you do?  Love is stronger than the woman loved and for her we do deeds of baseness, unblushingly, which she would forbid our doing, and for which she despises us when she hates us, and loves us the more dearly when she loves us at all.  You hate me—­then despise me, too, if you will.  It is too late to care.  I followed you like a spy, I saw what I expected to see, I have suffered what I knew I should suffer.  You know that I have been away during this whole month, and that I have travelled thousands of leagues in the hope of forgetting you.”

“And yet I fancied I had seen you within the month,” Unorna said, with a cruel smile.

“They say that ghosts haunt the places they have loved,” answered Kafka unmoved.  “If that be true I may have troubled your dreams and you may have seen me.  I have come back broken in body and in heart.  I think I have come back to die here.  The life is going out of me, but before it is quite gone I can say two things.  I can tell you that I know you at last, and that, in spite of the horror of knowing what you are, I love you still.”

“Am I so very horrible?” she asked scornfully.

“You know what you are, better than I can tell you, but not better than I know.  I know even the secret meaning of your moods and caprices.  I know why you are willing to listen to me, this last time, so patiently, with only now and then a sneer and a cutting laugh.”

“Why?”

“In order to make me suffer the more.  You will never forgive me now, for you know that I know, and that alone is a sin past all forgiveness, and over and above that I am guilty of the crime of loving when you have no love for me.”

“And as a last resource you come to me and recapitulate your misdeeds.  The plan is certainly original, though it lacks wit.”