“I don't store anything,” she assured him; “but it wouldn't be honest of me to pretend I am what I was--once. I was a child then, and now I'm a woman. You have made me that. I am what you made me.” He stared into the fire, dropped her hand, which she instantly hid under the other. “You mean to tell me, then,” he said, “that I have made you cease to care?” She tried to soften the verdict. “You seemed to me not to care very much yourself. You left me for a year together--” “Once, my dear. I left you for one year.” “One whole year, you know,” she replied, “and for other times too.” “I never ceased to love you,” he vowed. “You must be aware how much I depended upon you. You were always with me.” She could have laughed at him. “I don't pretend to the same state of mind. During those absences of yours I learned to be happy alone--and I was happy, too.” This seemed horrible to him. “I could not have believed it of you,” he said, aghast. “You must have changed indeed.” “I have changed,” she owned. He started to his knees and clasped her. “Beloved, I can change you again--I am the man who had your heart. I must do it--it's my right as well as my duty. Trust me again, my own; give me your dear hand again--and you shall see. If you are changed for the worse, I am changed for the better. You have redeemed me. What is it they say in the Bible? By your stripes I am healed. Yes, yes--that's precisely it. Kiss me, my own girl; kiss me.” His eyes implored: she stooped her sad head that he might kiss her. He strained upwards and held her until she broke away with a sob. “Oh, leave me, leave me for a little while,” she prayed him brokenly. “I can't talk any more now; I assure you I can't.” He begged her pardon for his vehemence. “I'm pretty bad myself, you know. This kind of thing plays the deuce with a man's heart.” She could thank him with a woman's for this naive assurance. “I don't doubt you for a moment,” she said. “You have been rather eloquent.” “Eloquent, my dear!” He raised his eyebrows. “You might spare me congratulations upon my eloquence. I don't deserve very much, perhaps--though God knows I tried to make you comfortable; but perhaps I deserve credit for sincerity.” She was not to be drawn that way. “I don't doubt your sincerity in the least,” she said. “But I wish you to allow for mine. I am changed, and have told you so.” “I can see that you are. Heaven knows that. Perhaps I deserve it: I don't know. It's hardly for me to talk about my own points, is it? Criticism, from whichever side it comes, does seem to me out of place in a love-scene. And you found me eloquent in spite of it! Surely I may congratulate myself upon that.” She looked at him standing before her, his arms folded; she showed him a face too dreary to be moved by sarcasm. “You may congratulate yourself on lots of things, I'm sure.”