Graham read the letter through twice, and folded it away, with a sigh. "Do I love her? Does she love me?" he queried; and all that day the doubt tormented him. While he worked, while he took his afternoon ramble through the woods, while he sat at his solitary supper, it rankled in his mind. He could not solve it; could she? It were best at least to ask her. It was only right that she should know of his doubts of her and of himself. He found her flushed with pleasure at the sight of him. She had anticipated his coming, and was dressed in soft colors which he approved, and fair with a hundred little efforts of coquetry to please him. Her bronze hair seemed to the man but a mesh to snare him. He turned his eyes impatiently from the pretty, bare arms, and the cool, snowy shoulders shining through transparent draperies. His judgment should not be turned aside by her loveliness. He greeted her coolly, barely touching her outstretched hand; and then stood looking gloomily into the distance, not knowing what to say, uncertain of the truth, doubting her. The woman, quick to see his trouble, spoke to him tenderly, with a low, soothing voice, thanking him for coming to her, telling him how long the time had seemed since they had met.
"And tell me all about your new picture."
"I cannot, Millicent; your letter spoiled my day's work. I have done nothing since I read it."
"Dear, what can you mean?"
"This, Millicent,--that my work must always be first to me. I had thought that you would help me in it, but it is not so." After a pause, "Millicent, I think we have made a mistake, you and I. We cannot help each other, and therefore we hinder one another. You dazzle me with your beauty, and send me back to my work unfitted for it; while I only make you unhappy, and fear I can never do anything else."
"Graham, you kill me." She looked indeed as if a blow had been planted in her breast, as she reeled, all white and trembling, to a seat. Her words seemed to deepen the nervous agitation which possessed him, for he said impatiently,--
"What can I do? It is not my fault that you have neither the best love to give me, nor the power to arouse it in me. I tell you, child, that we have been mistaken, and that it is time for this thing to end."
"No, no, Graham; you are angry, you know not what you say. In mercy speak no more." She had sunk upon her knees, her clasped hands stretched toward him in an agony of fear.
"Do not kneel to me, but listen; for I am right. If things had been different, it might have been; but as they are, we have been mad to think of it. There is no help for it, my girl; we must kiss and part. You never loved me as you should, Millicent, because you could not. A woman can love but once, and that is the first time."
"It is not true. You, who are a man, say it. What woman ever said it? It is a lie, a lie! You shall not say it, you must not think it. You would make us creatures without souls indeed. Are they right, then, the Easterns? If when we women are sold, or stolen, or entrapped, we must love, and only then, you deny us other life than that of the earth. Of what man would you hold this doctrine to be true? It is utterly false! it is wicked! it is unworthy of you!" She moaned where she had fallen on the ground, and tried to speak again; but the man continued with a pitiless stream of words, sincere, earnest, spoken for her good as well as his own.