"You say your conscience is clear of wrong. You have a happy conscience. But it deceives you. It is true, that when you first knew Astræa, you were ignorant of his rights; but you were not ignorant of them when he found you together and claimed her. Up to that moment, you might have had some excuse. There was yet time to save her, yourself, and him. How did you act, then? If we are to discuss this matter with any hope of arriving at a rational conclusion, you must rid yourself of the flattering deception that you have been doing no wrong. We are not children, but grown-up men and responsible agents." "Well, I put myself in your hands. But that I should become an exile because this man chooses to pursue me with vindictive feelings, _does_ seem something monstrous." "From your point of sight, I dare say it does. Just change places with him. A man who desires to decide justly will always endeavor to look at both sides of a question. Put yourself in his position. He loves this woman. I am satisfied he loves her more truly and tenderly, and less selfishly now than he ever loved her from the beginning. You sneer at that. You do not credit the possibility of such a thing. It is a constitutional fallacy of yours to believe that no man loves as you do--that there is a leaven of earth in other men which mixes with their devotion and corrupts it. You have nursed this creed all your life, and it has grown with your growth. You alone are pure and spiritual. I remember you had that notion once before. I remember how you exalted yourself on the intensity and endurance of your passion. Surely by this time you should have outlived that delusion; for even then you might have seen men with hearts as--But I am wandering from the subject." "I understand you. I was young, superstitious, ignorant--" "I will speak plainly. You are not capable of a great devotion. Your character is not strong enough. You have none of the elements of power necessary to the maintenance of the martyrdom of love. In a nature constituted like yours, passion burns up fiercely, and goes out suddenly. I have heard you say--some years gone by!--that you were consumed by a love which would end only with your life. I was silent. I loved, too; but I vailed my eyes, and spoke not, as the coffin which contained all I cherished in the world was lowered into the grave. Hope--affection--the desire of life, were buried with it. You see me now wasted, haggard, solitary, a wreck upon the waters. And you? I find you plunged into the ecstasies of a new passion. And what of the old one? Where are the traces of it now? Some men can not live except in this condition of excitement. You are one of them. But do not deceive yourself into the belief that others have not hearts, because they do not show them in spasms such as these. Do not despise the faithful agonies even of the dwarf!"