'I see no such certainty.'
'Then it merely comes to this, that he and I love the same woman, and must abide by her decision.'
'The library?'
'Gone. I can give no thought to it, for I am suffering a greater lose. Be human! Be honest! Would you not despise me if, loving her as I do, I came to you and puled about the overthrow of my schemes for founding a public library? Let it go! Let the people rust and rot in ignorance! I am a man of flesh and blood, and the one woman that the world contains is lost to me!'
Mrs. Ormonde seemed to think long over this passionate outcry. Egremont broke the silence.
'Once more, be human! She writes to her sister that she has been ill, but is now taken care of by friends. What friends? You are not ignorant of the world. How small a chance it is that she has fallen among people who will protect her! A girl with her beauty, and so simple, so trustful—friends, indeed! I am all but frenzied to think of the dangers that may surround her. She is more to me than my life's blood, and perhaps even now she is in terrible need of some honest man to protect her. And you can talk coldly about prudence, about what we shall think and say years hence! Well, I can talk no more. To-morrow morning I shall go back to London and go on searching for her, walking about the streets day and night, wearing my life away in longing for her. I have done with the past, and all those I used to call my friends. There is no room in my thought for anything but her memory and the desire to find her. Let us say good-bye, Mrs. Ormonde. If I am wrong and selfish as you say, then it is beyond my power to conquer the faults.'
The listener heard a deep sigh. Then:
'Walter, sit down; you are not going from me like that.'
'I can't stay; I can't talk as you wish to! I am so utterably miserable, and I came to you because I had always known you gentle and sympathetic.'
'I would never be anything else with you. But listen—have you entirely forgotten Annabel?'