"It's a tumble-down old place, I know. But won't it do to be married in?" "Oh, it is so much harder when you seem to forget,--when for the moment you really do forget! But of course I know that it could not last." "What could not last?" She moved away a step or two. "If I should marry you, you would hate me. Not in the beginning. But it would come. For Ferdie was your brother, and I _did_ kill him; nothing can alter these facts--not even love. At first you wouldn't remember; then, gradually, he would come back to you; you would think of the time when you were boys together, and you would be sorry. Then, gradually, you would realize that _I_ killed him; whenever I came near you, you would see--" Her voice broke, but she hurried on. "You said I was brave to do it, and I was. You said it was heroic, and it was. Yet all the same, he _was_ your brother; and _I_ killed him. In defence of Cicely and the baby? Nothing makes any difference. I killed him, and you would end by hating me. Yet I shouldn't be able to leave you; once your wife, I know that I should stay on, even if it were only to fold your clothes,--to touch them; to pick up the burnt match-ends you had dropped, and your newspapers; to arrange the chairs as you like to have them. I should be weak, weak--I should follow you about. How you would loathe me! It would become to you a hell." "I'll take care of that," said Paul; "I'll see to my own hells; at present I'm thinking of something very different. We will be married to-day, and not wait for to-morrow; I will take you away to-night." Eve looked at him.--"Haven't you heard what I've been saying?" "Yes, I heard it; it was rubbish." But something in her face impressed him. "Eve, you are not really going to throw me over for a fancy like that?" "No; for the horrible truth." "My poor girl, you are all wrong, you are out of your mind. Let us look at only one side of it: what can you do in the world without me and my love as your shield? Your very position (which you talk too much about) makes _me_ your refuge. Where else could you go? To whom? You speak of staying with Cicely. But Cicely--about Ferdie--is a little devil. The boy will never be yours, she will not give him to you; and, all alone in the world, how desolate you will be! You think yourself strong, but to me you are like a child; I long to take care of you, I should guard you from everything. And there wouldn't be the least goodness in this on my part; don't think that; I'm passionately in love with you--I might as well confess it outright." Eve quivered as she met his eyes. "I shall stay with Cicely." "You don't care whether you make _me_ suffer?" "I want to save you from the far greater suffering that would come."