‘Well, I will tell you,’ he faltered. ‘I was very miserable. I had drifted into this engagement I don’t know how. Margaret glitters and glitters and glitters, but she is not of my kind. I suppose I thought, like a fool, I should marry someone who was rich. I found out soon that I loved nobody but you. I got to be always thinking of you and of this town. Then I heard that Howard had lost his curacy, and asked him up. I just left them alone and did not go near Margaret much. I knew they were made for each other. Do not let us talk of them,’ he continued, eagerly. ‘Let us talk about the future. I will take a farm and turn farmer. I dare say my uncle will not give me anything when he dies because I have left his office. He will call me a ne’er-do-weel, and say I would squander it. But you and I--we will get married, will we not? We will be very happy,’ he went on, pleadingly. ‘You will still have your charities, and I shall be busy with my farm. We will surround ourselves with a wall. The world will be on the outside, and on the inside we and our peaceful lives.’ ‘Wait,’ she said; ‘I will give you your answer,’ and going into the next room returned with several bundles of letters. She laid them on the table; some were white and new, some slightly yellow with time. ‘John,’ she said, growing very pale, ‘here are all the letters you ever wrote me from your earliest boyhood.’ She took one of the large candles from the mantelpiece, and, lighting it, placed it on the hearth. Sherman wondered what she was going to do with it. ‘I will tell you,’ she went on, ‘what I had thought to carry to the grave unspoken. I have loved you for a long time. When you came and told me you were going to be married to another I forgave you, for man’s love is like the wind, and I prayed that God might bless you both.’ She leant down over the candle, her face pale and contorted with emotion. ‘All these letters after that grew very sacred. Since we were never to be married they grew a portion of my life, separated from everything and everyone--a something apart and holy. I re-read them all, and arranged them in little bundles according to their dates, and tied them with thread. Now I and you--we have nothing to do with each other any more.’ She held the bundle of letters in the flame. He got up from his seat. She motioned him away imperiously. He looked at the flame in a bewildered way. The letters fell in little burning fragments about the hearth. It was all like a terrible dream. He watched those steady fingers hold letter after letter in the candle flame, and watched the candle burning on like a passion in the grey daylight of universal existence. A draught from under the door began blowing the ash about the room. The voice said--