"Do I not know it! Is it not this knowledge that is breaking my heart—that has already broken it?" she retorted wildly. "Do you think I am sorrowing for myself alone? Do you think me so mean, so selfish? Listen, Lady Lilian, if—if this separation were to bring him happiness I could have borne it with a smile. If you could come to me and say, 'He will forget you and his love in a week—a month—a year!' I would welcome you as one who brings me consolation and hope. Who am I that I should think of myself alone?—I, the miserable, insignificant girl whom he condescended to bless with his love! I am—nothing! Nothing save what his love made me. If my life could have purchased his happiness I would have given it. Lady Lilian you do not know me——"
The tempest of her passion overawed the other weak and trembling girl.
"You love him so!" she murmured.
Stella looked at her with a smile.
"I love him," she said, slowly. "I will never say it again, never! I say it to you that you may know and understand how deep and wide is the gulf which stretches between us—so wide that it can never, never be overpassed."
"No, no, you shall not say it."
Stella smiled bitterly.
"I think I know why you have come, Lilian. You think this a mere lovers' quarrel, that a word will set straight. Quarrel! How little you know either him or me. There never could have been a quarrel between us—one cannot quarrel with oneself! His word, his wish were law to me. If he had said 'do this,' I should have done it—if he had said 'go thither,' I should have gone; but once he laid his command on me, and I obeyed. There is nothing I would not have done—nothing, if he had bidden me. I know it now—I know now that I was like a reed in his hands now that I have lost him."
Lilian put her hand upon her lips.
"You shall not say it!" she murmured, hoarsely. "Nothing can part you—nothing can stand against such love! You are right. I never knew what it meant until to-night. Stella, you cannot mean to send him away—you will not let anything save death come between you?"