With perfect consciousness he made his tone as gentle as he could. His words did not seem to himself spontaneous; these were prompted to him from within, and she repeated them as if playing a part. Isabel came nearer, and held to him the photograph he had returned her. Since sending the note, she had stood there with it in her hand; it was bent. “Will you take it back again?” she asked. He saw her throat swell; she seemed to swallow something before she spoke. He did not move to take it. “You wish,” he replied, “to be a shopkeeper’s wife?” With no smile he said it; yet it cost him an effort. Again it was the repetition of prompted words. “I thought you had perhaps heard,” Isabel said, letting her hand fall again, and speaking quickly, still with that swelling of the throat. “Ada refuses to take what is hers by law. She has given it back to me.” Kingcote’s eyes held themselves fixed upon her face. The silence seemed to be long; he was conscious of prolonging it purposely. He saw her put her hand upon the table and lean heavily on it. “Will you answer me?” she uttered in an agitated whisper. “Surely it is needless to answer in words,” he said at length. “Why have you come to offer me that which you know I cannot accept?” The evil spirit stirred in his breast, and, with scarcely a pause, he continued vehemently: “Why did you not spare both of us this? Do you think so basely of me? Cannot I read in your face that you believed it to be your duty to make this offer to me, at whatever cost to yourself? You are conscious that your unkindness drove me to part from you in frenzy, and what has happened seemed to impose a necessity of restoring to me a piece of good fortune which I had thrown away. And you have feared lest I should take you at your word! If you had ever loved me you would know me better.” Her head bowed itself before his violence; he could scarcely catch the words when she said: “I did love you.” “For a day--for an hour; I believe it. You gave me your love in recklessness. It was a fatal gift.” “I think you should not reproach me,” she said, in the same faint voice. “I gave you the one love of my life. I would have married you then. It would have been truer kindness to take me--to have given me something to live for. My love would not have failed you.” For an instant he could have implored what fate had written unattainable. He knew the unreality of the vision that tempted him, and could not have uttered the words his tongue half-formed. But the mood showed itself in gentler speech. “I have no right to speak so harshly. The last words we shall ever say to each other must not be unkind. If I did not still love you it would be easier to speak smooth things.” Her tears were falling.