"Hush!"
The word was whispered. Then she, too, was still.
"Begin again." The words seemed to come to me like the words which we hear in a dream. "What is done, is done. You cannot put it behind you altogether. But it is done. It is not yet to do. And, because it is done, therefore, you need not do it again, in the time which is to come. If you have strength--and you have strength, Mr. Townsend--play the man."
I had never thought that any one would have had to bid me play the man. But she had to bid me then. She laid her hand upon my shoulder. Beneath her touch a shudder went all over me. Then I looked up at her.
"You are not for such as I am."
"But you are for such as I am."
I held my breath. I knew not what to do or say. I stared in front of me, not understanding what it was I saw.
"What is it that you say?"
"Are you so deaf? All in an instant have you become so dull? Come, I will do the wooing, since you are afraid to woo me." That ever I should have been told by a woman that I was afraid to woo her! "If you but love me half as I love you, you will fill the world with the fame of the great deeds which you will do for love of me, and leave behind a name which men never shall let die."
"Dora! Dora! My Dora!"