Vesty struggled again in her dim way.
"Why need it be?" cried Notely sharply. He raised himself on the pillows as if stung; a deep crimson rushed to his cheeks.
"It is," said Vesty sadly, quietly—"it is. What we want—putting by. Do you think I did not care for you?"
His haggard face turned to her.
"Will not always care for you? But you will never be a great man till you can put by what you want, when they stand against each other, for what is right, though it be hard. Then one would not only admire and love you; they would trust you to death's door, though all the way was hard."
Notely had no answer for the tongue-loosed Basin. Besides, her words had comforted him, her tears fell on him.
"I do not think," she said, with a look and voice of such tenderness, as though it were her farewell, "that it was all to us, that I should marry you, or you should marry me—until we could live brave and true, though we lost one another, and follow the only way we saw, though it was hard. I do not believe we should have been happy—without that—after a little while.
"I could not love you if you left your wife and married me. I should never trust you. I would rather we should both die. Go back to her and win her with your own love and kindness, and be true to her, and I shall never lose my love for you."
"Do you know what love is?" said Notely, with clinched teeth, tears springing from between the wasted fingers pressed against his eyes. "Do you know what it is to suffer?"
She gave him no flaming retort. She put her head beside him.