She did not refute this solution of her sadness. She knew it was true. And when he looked into her eyes, the blue was troubled with a mist as of coming tears. Then passion--more mighty than ever--seized him once more. He only felt a wild desire to comfort her, to kiss away the mist--to talk to her. Ah! "Theodora!" he said, and his voice vibrated with emotion, while he bent forward and seized both her hands, which he lifted to his face--she had not put on her gloves again after the tea--her cool, little, tender hands! He kissed and kissed their palms. "Darling--darling," he said, incoherently, "what have I done to make your dear eyes wet? Oh, I love you so, I love you so, and I have only made you sad." She gave a little, inarticulate cry. If a wounded dove could sob, it might have been the noise of a dove, so beseeching and so pathetic. "Oh, please--you must not," she said. "Oh, what have you done!--you have killed our happy day." And this was the beginning of his awakening. He sat for many moments with his head buried in his hands. What, indeed, had he done!--and they would be turned out of their garden of Eden--and all because he was a brute, who could not control his passion, but must let it run riot on the first opportunity. He suffered intensely. Suffered, perhaps, for the first time in his life. She had not said one word of anger--only that tone in her voice reached to his heart. He did not move and did not speak, and presently she touched his hands softly with her slender fingers, it seemed like the caress of an angel's wing. "Listen," she said, so gently. "Oh, you must not grieve--but it was too good to be true, our day. I ought to have known to where we were drifting, I am wicked to have let you say all you have said to-day, but oh, I was asleep, I think, and I only knew that I was happy. But now you have shown me--and oh, the dream is broken up. Come, let us go back to the world." Then he raised his eyes to her face, and they were haggard and miserable. How her simple speech, blaming herself who was all innocent, touched his heart and filled him with shame at his unworthiness. "Oh, forgive me!" he pleaded. "Oh, please forgive me! I am mad, I think, I love you so--and I had to tell you--and yes, I will say it all now, and then you can punish me. From the first moment I looked into your angel eyes it has been growing, you are so true and so sweet, and so miles beyond all other women in the world. Each minute I have loved you more--and all the time I thought to win you. Yes, you may well turn away, and shrink from me now that you know the brute I am. I thought I would make you love me, and you would forgive me then. But I have suddenly seen your soul, my darling, and I am ashamed, and I can only ask you to forgive me and let me worship you and be your slave--I will not ask for any return--only to worship you and be your slave--that I may show you I am not all brute and may earn your pardon."