"Friendship between us is impossible. That's why I went away. We ... we played it up too high. Friendship between a man and a woman is no use ... at least not to her and me ... although..."
"I'm not talking merely of friendship," said Edward Ambrose, very deliberately. "I'm talking of something else."
So charged with meaning were the words that the Sailor recoiled as if he had received a blow.
"What ... what are you saying!" he cried with a sudden blind rage in his face.
BOOK V
FULFILLMENT
I
"Why do you taunt me?" cried the Sailor after a pause hard to endure.
"I offer neither reason nor excuse for the words I have used," said Edward Ambrose calmly. "I can only say that she is more than your friend. You must remember that you have been away eleven months. In the meantime water still continues to flow under London Bridge."