"Do you mean it?" she asked. "Do you really mean—all this?"
"As I never meant anything else in my life. I violated nature and must pay the price."
Throughout all time and lands, he now felt, youth calls to youth, generation to generation, and not all the laws upon the statute-books of all the world can silence it.
"I've thought that you were ignorant," he was saying; "perhaps you were wiser than I. You are not breaking the law. You are fulfilling it. I was the one that was ignorant. I was the one that was wrong."
Out of sheer generosity, though her brain and heart cried assent to his every word, she tried to protest. But the youth in her heart clamoured that he was speaking truth.
"And so," he concluded, "now that I am sure that you truly love each other, I mean to step aside."
She looked at him blankly.
"Step aside?" she repeated.
"I mean to make what reparation is possible: I must."
Muriel's face quivered.