"Why then, Martin—dear Martin," says she, all suddenly slipping from her stool to kneel before me and reach out her two hands. "I do pray our Heavenly Father, here and now before you, that you, remembering all this agony and shame, may make of it a crown of glory ennobling your manhood—that you, forgetting nothing, may yet put vengeance from you now and for ever and strive to forget—to forgive, Martin, and win thereby your manhood and a happiness undreamed—" here she stopped, her bosom heaving, her eyes all tender pleading; and I (O deaf and purblind fool!) hearing, heard not and seeing, saw nought but the witching beauty of her; and now, having her hands in mine, beholding her so near, I loosed her hands and turned away lest I should crush her to me.
"'Tis impossible!" I muttered. "I am a man and no angel—'tis impossible!" Hereupon she rose and stood some while looking down into the fire and never a word; suddenly she turned as to leave me, then, sitting on her stool, drew out her hairpins and shook down her shining hair that showed bronze-red where the light caught it. And beholding her thus, her lovely face offset by the curtain of her hair, her deep, long-lashed eyes, the vivid scarlet of her mouth, I knew the world might nowhere show me a maid so perfect in beauty nor so vitally a woman.
"Martin!" says she very softly, as she began braiding a thick tress of hair. "Have you ever truly loved any woman?"
"No," says I, "No!"
"Could you so love, I wonder?"
"No!" says I again and clenching my hands. "No—never!"
"Why, true," says she, more softly, "methinks in your heart is no room for poor Love, 'tis over-full of Hate, and hate is a disease incurable with you. Is't not so, Martin?"
"Yes—no! Nay, how should I know?" quoth I.
"Yet should love befall you upon a day, 'twould be love unworthy any good woman, Martin!"
"Why then," says I, "God keep me from the folly of love."