“Go! Go where?”
“Ah! God knows! Anywhere. Wherever I could hide myself. Wherever I could hide my love for you.”
Her eyes had been raised to his. At the confession they lowered of themselves. Then again she looked him in the face.
“Gulian, it is that which cried shame at me. It is that which scourged me with rods bitterer than those of which you spoke. You say the barriers are nothing. Gulian, you are wrong. To me they are eternal.”
“Yes,” he angrily retorted. “Yes, if your story were true. But it isn’t. It’s arrant nonsense.”
In miserable protest, she half raised a hand.
“Gulian, when I read those letters my youth died in me. Never since they reached me have I had the heart to smile. If you had seen them you would have felt the truth in every line.”
“I would have felt nothing of the kind; the fact that you still care for me ought to show you that they are false.”
“Gulian, I tried to think that, too; but even in trying I felt that I was pleading for myself.”
“Then, for the love of God, stop pleading and act! Look at yourself, look at me! We could not be more unlike if we came from different planets.”