"She can go to her parents," I said. "O'Rane, we're all of us different men and women every day of our lives, we're always changing, never the same. Some things change us more rapidly than others, marriage, illness, great prosperity or great disaster, the death of a friend—my dear boy, I'm only telling you what you know already. Because your name doesn't change, because you look the same and your hair doesn't turn white from illness or grief, you think that you're the same. You're not. And she's not. Since you parted, there have been changes and developments in both your souls which will prevent your ever coming together again. You don't like me to say it, but you'll have to recognise it."
The boy's eyes seemed to shine with reflected pain at every word.
"But isn't there room for something new?" he asked. "A man may love a woman with all his heart and soul, he may marry her, she may die; in time he may marry again—without forgetting her, without transferring the affection he once gave her—leaving her in the place where she's always been since she died, but somehow creating a new love. Don't you think that when two people ... separate, the husks of their love may die ... their old love, I mean, they may even hate the memory of it, but in time, perhaps, a new one may be born ...?"
"Between the same people? My friend, the memory of the separation, the reasons for it, will rise up like ghosts to keep them apart. You want her to come back?"
For the first time a wan smile lit up his thin face.
"Do you wonder?"
"What can you give her that you didn't give her before?" I persisted.
He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed.
"I shouldn't like to think that a second chance is always thrown away."