"Ah," she said, "has true love any reservations? You love her, and yet you have something else to say."
"I have. I love her still. But it is not as I loved her. She has convinced me of her constancy to her first affection, that—that—"
"Yes, yes."
"That being so convinced, I now love her, but with that love a brother might feel for a dear sister, and I almost think it was a kind of preparation to try to awaken in the smouldering fires of her lost love a new passion. She has made me feel that the love of woman once truly awakened is an undying passion and can know no change—no extinction."
"True. Oh, how true!"
"I have learnt from her that when once the heart of a young and gentle girl—one in whom there are no evil passions, no world-wise failings nor earthly varieties—is touched by the holy flame of affection, it may consume her being, but it never can be extinguished."
Arabella burst into tears.
"Love," added the colonel, "may be trodden down, but like truth it can never be trodden out!"
"Never! never!" sobbed Arabella. "Let me go now! Oh, sir, let me go home now?"
"One moment!"