"There are so many kinds of love," he sighed, gazing at her dark eyes that once had flamed with passion, at her fragile lips that had uttered such words as he was never to hear, at her whole pale-brown countenance that would never express for him what it had expressed for the other.
"I want nothing else," she affirmed, in a voice wherein no one could have found any insincerity.
"Perhaps you believe even that. But when it comes to you, then you'll realize what a trap I've caught you in." He gave her a look of horror. "Why did you go there that afternoon to Brantome's? When you saw me there, sitting alone in the shadows, dying with no weight on my conscience, why didn't you leave me alone? But maybe you had no idea of the effect you were going to produce on me—that your look, and voice, and mind, were what I'd always been waiting for. Or since you had come there why couldn't my conscience die at the moment when you made me live again? But instead of dying, my conscience is becoming more and more alive."
He bit his lips to keep back a groan. She declared:
"You're harming yourself again. You won't be able to work to-morrow."
"What is my work worth, if it dooms you to this?" Presently he said in a quiet tone, "It would be easy to free you."
"Ah, you are horrible!"
"Don't be afraid. If there is anywhere beyond this life, anything in the nature of a heaven, it would seem inferior to this house, where I can see you without possessing the love that you're capable of, and hear your voice utter these incredible reassurances. Yes, my conscience torments me, but not enough for that. While I may, I'll hold on to you and to life, even when I feel sure that your thoughts are turning elsewhere, and even if it comes to pass that your bodily self must follow those thoughts. For as your pity returns, so must you return to me. What a weapon I've found in pity! What a victory it will bring me! Some other man may end by winning yourself; but I, as long as I can keep my grip on life, will cling to this ghost of you!"
"Do you do this just in order to drive me mad?" she cried.
"No, you would understand if you could see into my soul. All its surgings and clashings, its vortexes of pain and joy, the anguish that somehow produces an audible beauty, and the ecstasies that are struck mute by these fears! If I could explain all that, you would forgive me for these moments that are beyond my control. But I can't explain it. Not even in my music. One is always alone with one's heart."