"And then--and then--I am quite ready to confess that I may have been mistaken about myself; and I am afraid you encouraged the mistake. You know, I am quite sure, I am not the heroic person you tried to make me believe I was. I have found myself out, Keith; and just in time before making a terrible blunder. I am very glad that it is myself I have to blame. I have got very little resolution. 'Unstable as water'--that is the phrase: perhaps I should not like other people to apply it to me; but I am quite ready to apply it to myself; for I know it to be true; and it would be a great pity if any one's life were made miserable through my fault. Of course, I thought for a time that I was a very courageous and resolute person--you flattered me into believing it; but I have found myself out since. Don't you understand, Keith?" He gave a sign of assent; his silence was more embarrassing than any protest or appeal. "Oh, I could choose such a wife for you, Keith!--a wife worthy of you--a woman as womanly as you are manly; and I can think of her being proud to be your wife, and how all the people who came to your house would admire and love her--" He looked up in a bewildered way. "Gerty," he said, "I don't quite know what it is you are speaking about. You are speaking as if some strange thing had come between us; and I was to go one way, and you another, through all the years to come. Why, that is all nonsense! See! I can take your hand--that is the hand that gave me the red rose. You said you loved me, then; you cannot have changed already. I have not changed. What is there that would try to separate us? Only words, Gerty!--a cloud of words humming round the ears and confusing one. Oh, I have grown heart-sick of them in your letters, Gerty; until I put the letters away altogether, and I said, 'They are no more than the leaves of last autumn: when I see Gerty, and take her hand, all the words will disappear then.' Your hand is not made of words, Gerty; it is warm and kind, and gentle--it is a woman's hand. Do you think words are able to make me let go my grasp of it? I put them away--I do not hear any more of them. I only know that you are beside me, Gerty; and I hold your hand!" He was no longer the imploring lover: there was a strange elation, a sort of triumph, in his tone.