She laughed bitterly.

`Why are you ashamed of it,' he answered. `You wouldn't be ashamed before your God, why are you before people?'

`Nay,' she answered deeply, `I am not ashamed.'

`You are,' he replied bitterly; `and it's my fault. But you know I can't help being--as I am--don't you?'

`I know you can't help it,' she replied.

`I love you an awful lot--then there is something short.'

`Where?' she answered, looking at him.

`Oh, in me! It is I who ought to be ashamed--like a spiritual cripple. And I am ashamed. It is misery. Why is it?'

`I don't know,' replied Miriam.

`And I don't know,' he repeated. `Don't you think we have been too fierce in our what they call purity? Don't you think that to be so much afraid and averse is a sort of dirtiness?'

She looked at him with startled dark eyes.

`You recoiled away from anything of the sort, and I took the motion from you, and recoiled also, perhaps worse.'

There was silence in the room for some time.

`Yes,' she said, `it is so.'

`There is between us,' he said, `all these years of intimacy. I feel naked enough before you. Do you understand?'

`I think so,' she answered.

`And you love me?'

She laughed.

`Don't be bitter,' he pleaded.

She looked at him and was sorry for him; his eyes were dark with torture. She was sorry for him; it was worse for him to have this deflected love than for herself, who could never be properly mated. He was restless, for ever urging forward and trying to find a way out. He might do as he liked, and have what he liked of her.

`Nay,' she said softly, `I am not bitter.'

She felt she could bear anything for him; she would suffer for him. She put her hand on his knee as he leaned forward in his chair. He took it and kissed it; but it hurt to do so. He felt he was putting himself aside. He sat there sacrificed to her purity, which felt more like nullity. How could he kiss her hand passionately, when it would drive her away, and leave nothing but pain? Yet slowly he drew her to him and kissed her.