"Why, you no longer love me!"
"I do love you, Tilly, very much."
"No, you don't love me. How could you love me? Do you think I don't see it? You love all of them here, all your relations: you don't love me. You hardly love your children."
"Tilly!"
"No, you hardly love your own children."
"Tilly, you've no right to speak like that. Because I'm fond of Uncle Gerrit's children, is that any reason why I shouldn't be fond of you ... and of Stan and little Jet?"
She had risen, tremulously. She looked into his grave eyes, which gazed at her long and almost sorrowfully, from under his heavily-knitted, tawny eyebrows. She had intended to overwhelm him with reproaches; but on the contrary she threw herself on his breast, with her arms around his neck:
"Tell me that you love me!" she cried, with a great sob.
"I love you, Tilly, you know I love you."
He kissed her. But she heard it through his voice, she felt it through his kiss: he no longer loved her. All at once, suddenly, the certainty of it poured a coldness as of ice into her soul. She held him away from her for a moment, with her hand against his shoulders. She stared at him.... He also looked at her, with his sorrowful eyes, and he spoke, but she did not hear what.... Then she heard him say: