"No," she said hopelessly. "What words can we have together?"
"And we are parting like this, and for ever?"
"For ever. Yes, it has to be for ever," she answered almost
mechanically.
"Leam, why did you love me?" he cried, taking her hands in his and
keeping them.
"How could I help it? Who would not love you?" she answered.
Again he gave a sudden heavy sob, and again the poor pale, tortured face
reflected the pain it witnessed.
"Good-bye!" she then said, drawing her hands from his. "Remember only,
when you blame me, that I told you, not to let you be degraded. And
forgive me before I die, for I loved you--ah, better than my own life!"
With a sudden impulse she stooped forward, took back his right hand in
both of hers, pressed it to her bosom, kissed it passionately again and
again, then turned with one faint, half-suppressed moan, and left him.
And as he heard her light feet cross the hall, wearily, heavily, as the
feet of a mourner dragging by the grave of the beloved, he knew that his
dream of love was over. But, with the strange satire of the senses in
moments of sorrow, noting ever the most trivial things, Edgar noted
specially the powerful perfume of a spray of lemon-plant which she
bruised as she pressed his hand against her breast.
That evening Edgar Harrowby went down to the rectory. He was strong
enough in physique and in some phases of will, but he was not strong all
through, and he had never been able to face unassisted the first
desolation of a love-disappointment.
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