He sees that his poor plea, instead of, as he had faintly hoped, a little bettering his position with her, has, read by the light of her mistaken knowledge, only served to intensify in her eyes the blackness of his inconstancy. Well, it is only one more added to the heap of earth's unnumbered injustices. It is only that Betty has done her work thoroughly this time. But he cannot bear to meet the reproachful anguish of the face that is bent above him, knowing that never on this side the grave can he set himself right with her. If only it might be for ever, instead of for these few hurrying moments, that he could shut out the light of day! The clock ticks on evenly. It sounds unnaturally loud and brutal in his singing ears; but its tick is not mixed with any light noise of retreating footsteps. She is still lingering near him, and by and by a long sob shudders out on the air. 'If you could persuade me that I was wrong,' she wails; 'if you could persuade me that it was some hideous delusion of my eyes--people have had such before now--that it existed only in my wicked fancy! Oh, if you could--if you could!' 'I cannot,' he replies hoarsely; 'you know that I cannot. Why do you torment me?' He has answered without looking up, still maintaining the attitude dictated by his despair; but when a little rustle of drapery tells him that she is really departing, he can no longer contain himself, but falls at her feet, crying out, 'Tell me how bad my punishment is to be!' For a moment she looks down on him silently, her face all quivering as with some fiery pain; then in a very low voice: 'Punishment!' she says; 'punishment! There is no question of _punishment_. It is only that you have killed my heart.' 'Killed--your--heart!' he repeats blankly, as if too stunned to take in the meaning of the phrase. 'Yes,' she says, breathing fast and heavily; 'yes. I do not think you knew what you were doing. I believe it was a sudden madness that seized you--such a madness as,' with a touch of scorn, 'may be common to men. I know but little of them and their ways; but--but--what security have I against its seizing you a second time?' He writhes. A second time? Oh, if she did but know how little it had seized him the first! 'If I married you now,' she goes on, her voice gaining a greater firmness, and a new and forlorn stability coming into her white face, 'I should love you, certainly. Yes,' with a melancholy shake of her head, 'I think that I shall never leave off loving you now. But if I married you, I should make you very unhappy; I should not take things easily--I should not be patient. And however happy we might be when we were together, since you have killed my trust in you, you would never be out of sight that I should not be fancying that you were--as--as--as I saw you last night.'