"Now I see that a lie is always wrong. The truth would have sent you forth before this. It is the truth that makes you ready now. And yet last night I did not change in order to make you go."
Romney spoke slowly:
"It did not come to me until just now. You have said it. We are given just so much intensity—then there is a rest. It was like reaching the top of a mountain—last night—"
"But we have to begin all over again to-day," she said dully. "The truth starts you on your journey. Yesterday I wanted you to start. It seemed a test. I could not see the truth I wanted about you—with your staying on here. I felt that I was the cause, and that some ancient wickedness must adhere to me. I did everything to make you go—but first of all I made you stay—clung to your stirrup that first morning. I do not understand myself—"
"That first morning held a very real moment to me," Romney said.
"But that's not all," she went on, appearing not to hear.
"What more?"
"Now again, I want—oh, it's hard to have you go."
Romney was silent.
"Must we always be apart?" she asked in the same dull way. "Last night it all looked different. You said such an incomparable thing to a woman. You said that you had turned from your work to me—that your dream had become me. I never shall forget your face—dazed, not realising hardly that I had brought you back into this house. It was as if you were on a ridge between heaven and hell, and but one true thing remained for you to say.... 'I think I shall not pass this way again. If there is something more important here below than this love—very well. Let them have it who say so. As for me, I love you. I think the great man who said, "Give all to love," meant me.'"