`Take them, take these dreadful books!' she said, pushing away the notebooks lying before her on the table. `Why did you give them me? No, it was better anyway,' she added, touched by his despairing face. `But it's awful, awful!'

His head sank, and he was silent. He could say nothing.

`You can't forgive me,' he whispered.

`Yes, I forgive you; but it's horrible!'

But his happiness was so immense that this confession did not shatter it, it only added another shade to it. She forgave him; but from that time, more than ever, he considered himself unworthy of her, morally bowed down lower than ever before her, and prized more highly than ever his undeserved happiness.