"Ah! Mr. Bertram."
"That is all; and that is true. Adela, I have not much to give; but I would give it all—all—everything to have her back—to have her back as I used to think her. But if I could have her now—as I know her now—by raising this hand, I would not take her. But this imputes no blame to her. She tried to love me, but she could not."
"Ah! she did love you."
"Never!" He almost shouted as he said this; and as he did so, he stood across his companion's path. "Never! She never loved me. I know it now. What poor vile wretches we are! It is this I think that most torments me."
And then they walked on. Adela had come there expressly to speak to him, but now she was almost afraid to speak. Her heart had been full of what it would utter, but now all utterance seemed to have left her. She had intended to console, but she did not dare to attempt it. There was a depth, almost a sublimity about his grief which kept her silent.
"Oh! Adela," he said, "if you knew what it is to have an empty heart—or rather a heart not empty—that would fain be empty that you might again refill it. Dear Adela!" And he put out his hand to take her own. She hardly knew why, but she let him take her hand. "Dear Adela; have you never sighed for the comfort of an empty heart? You probe my wounds to the bottom; may I not search your own?"
She did not answer him. Was it possible that she should answer such a question? Her eyes became suffused with tears, and she was unable to raise them from the ground. She could not recall her hand—not at that moment. She had come there to lecture him, to talk to him, to comfort him; and now she was unable to say a word. Did he know the secret of her heart; that secret which once and but once had involuntarily broken from out her lips? Had Caroline told him? Had she been so false to friendship—as false to friendship as she had been to love?
"Adela! Adela! I would that we had met earlier in our lives. Yes, you and I." These last words he added after she had quickly rescued her hand from his grasp. Very quickly she withdrew it now. As quickly she lifted up her face, all covered as it was with tears, and endured the full weight of his gaze. What! was it possible that he knew how she had loved, and thought that her love had been for him!
"Yes, you and I," he continued. "Even though your eyes flash upon me so sternly. You mean to say that had it been ever so early, that prize would have been impossible for me. Speak out, Adela. That is what you mean?"
"Yes; it would have been impossible; impossible every way; impossible, that is, on both sides."