He raised his head and looked about him in the darkness.
"Came home," he repeated, "no longer a man; the shadow of a man, with no hope, no outlook, no right to hope."
He leaned heavily on the table, his arm rigid, looking down at the floor as he spoke.
"No right to hope. Others told me that I still possessed that right. I knew they were wrong; I do not mean that they persuaded me—I persuaded myself that, after all, perhaps my right to hope remained to me. I persuaded myself that I might be, after all, the substance, not the shadow."
He looked up at her:
"And so I dared to love you."
She gazed at him, scarcely breathing.
"Then," he said, "came the awakening. My dream had ended."
She waited, the lace on her breast scarce stirring, so still she stood, so pitifully still.
"Such responsibility cannot die while those live who undertook it. I believed it until I desired to believe it no longer. But a man's self-persuasion cannot alter such laws—nor can human laws confirm or nullify them, nor can a great religion do more than admit their truth, basing its creed upon such laws. . . . No man can put asunder, no laws of man undo the burden. . . . And, to my shame and disgrace, I have had to relearn this after offering you a love I had no right to offer—a life which is not my own to give."