"Wife! she will never be his wife. She will never be bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh, as I would have made her. It will be but a partnership between them, to be dissolved when they have made the most of their world's trading."
"If you love her, Mr. Bertram, do not be so bitter in speaking of her."
"Bitter! I tell you that I think her quite right in what she does. If a woman cannot love, what better can she do than trade upon her beauty? But, there; let her go; I did not wish to speak of her."
"I was very wrong in asking you to walk with me this morning."
"No, Adela, not wrong; but very, very right. There, well, I will not ask you for your hand again, though it was but in friendship."
"In friendship I will give it you," and she stretched out her hand to him. It was ungloved, and very white and fair; a prettier hand than even Caroline could boast.
"I must not take it. I must not lie to you, Adela. I am broken-hearted. I have loved; I have loved that woman with all my heart, with my very soul, with the utmost strength of my whole being—and now it has come to this. If I know what a broken heart means, I have it here. But yet—yet—yet. Oh, Adela! I would fain try yet once again. I can do nothing for myself; nothing. If the world were there at my feet, wealth, power, glory, to be had for the stooping, I would not stoop to pick them, if I could not share them with—a friend. Adela, it is so sad to be alone!"
"Yes, it is sad. Is not sadness the lot of many of us?"
"Yes; but nature bids us seek a cure when a cure is possible."
"I do not know what you wish me to understand, Mr. Bertram?"