"You are always just, Myles—where you understand. The hard, impossible thing is to be just where we don't understand. You're going to talk to me about Christo; and I'm going to listen. You've a right to speak—which is more than anybody else in the world has, though certain folks don't realise that. I thought all was well, but I am wrong. You hide behind yourself so much—even from me. You are an unhappy man, and you have not told me, but Uncle Mark has."
"I may be considered so. And to know that I am makes you unhappy and Yeoland uncomfortable. I have spoken to him recently. I explained to him that the present position, apart from my personal feelings concerning it, was very undesirable and must be modified, to say the least. He seemed surprised, but quite unprepared to make any suggestion. A plan other than my own proposal he hinted at, but he did not put it before me."
"He can feel deeply too; this must have been a shock and a grief to him."
"At least he recognised that it was so to me. I think he was neither shocked nor grieved himself. If anything, he felt incensed by my attitude. The position is not endurable to me, though you and he see no difficulty. But I must be allowed the decision, and I say that this state has to cease—selfish though that may seem to you."
"Then it shall cease. You could not be selfish if you tried, Myles. I, too, can feel a little. Uncle Mark began what you are going to finish. I'm probably faulty in my intellect, or I should have seen all this sooner. At any rate I know what I owe to you—what a husband you have been to me. I won't talk of duty; I'll talk of my love for you, Myles dearest. That is a live, deep thing at least."
"I never thought to doubt it, or ask proof of it. I knew it was real enough, and believed it immortal until—not doubt—I won't say doubt came—but sorrow, and a cloud, and a mist of the mind that was very chilling to me. I have lost my way in it of late, and have wandered wondering how far off you were in the darkness, asking myself if we were drifting further and further apart, fearing that it was so."
"You have been too patient, and I too blind. And I have loved you more every day, not less."
"It is a question for your decision. I don't like to wound your ear with blunt words; but there must be no more vague misery for want of speech after to-night. Half the wretchedness of life happens because we're frightened to speak out, and make a clean wound, and have done with it. You're my wife, for better or worse—not necessarily for good and all. My heart and soul are wrapped up in your well-being; but I've got to live my own life, not yours; I've got to do the unknown will, and I've no right to let anything from outside come between me and what I believe is my duty. Nothing outside a man can hurt him, unless he suffers it to do so. I must not let these troubles stand between me and my road any longer. I must go on with the light I have—alone, if you say so; but I must go on."
"Alone?"
"If you say so. Self-respect to a man with my outlook is all he has. And I'm losing it."