"Nothing. I'm going to change it now by proving differently. I shall take you against your will—but I shall make you love me—in the end. I know you—you're a woman, in spite of yourself!"
"You were entirely right about me. I would even have married you because of the money—"
"Tell me what it is you're holding back—don't wait."
"Let me think—don't talk, please!"
She sat a long time silent, motionless, her eyes fixed ahead. At length she stirred herself to speak.
"You were right about me, partly—and partly wrong. I don't think I can make you understand. I've always wanted so much from life—so much more than it seemed possible to have. The only thing for a girl in my position and circumstances was to make what is called a good marriage. I wanted what that would bring, too. I was torn between the desires—or rather the natural instincts and the trained desires. I had ideals about loving and being loved, and I had the material ideals of my experience in this world out here.
"I was untrue to each by turns. Here—I want to show you something."
She took up a book with closely written pages.
"I came here to-night—I won't conceal from you that I thought of you when I came. It was my last time here, and you had gone, I supposed. Among other things I had out this old diary to burn, and I had found this, written on my eighteenth birthday, when I came out—the fond, romantic, secret ideal of a foolish girl—listen:
"The Soul of Love wed the Soul of Truth and their daughter, Joy, was born: who was immortal and in whom they lived for ever!'