"There is a lot of nonsense talked about self-sacrifice and love; about the beauties of abnegation and martyrdom, but, Kathleen, if I shall ever need him at all, I need him now. I'm afraid to be alone any longer; I'm frightened at the chances against me. Do you know what these days of horror have been to me, locked in here--all alone--in the depths of degradation for what--what I did that night--in distress and shame unutterable----" "My darling----" "Wait! I had more to endure--I had to endure the results of my education in the study of man! I had to realise that I loved one of them who has done enough to annihilate in me anything except love. I had to learn that he couldn't kill that--that I want him in spite of it, that I need him, that my heart is sick with dread; that he can have me when he will--Oh, Kathleen, I have learned to care less for him than when I denied him for his own sake--more for him than I did before he held me in his arms! And that is not a high type of love--I know it--but oh, if I could only have his arms around me--if I could rest there for a while--and not feel so frightened, so utterly alone!--I might win out; I might kill what is menacing me, with God's help--and his!" She lay shivering on Kathleen's breast now, dry-eyed, twisting her ringless fingers in dumb anguish. "Darling, darling," murmured Kathleen, "you cannot do this thing. You cannot let him assume a burden that is yours alone." "Why not? What is one's lover for?" "Not to use; not to hazard; not to be made responsible for a sick mind and a will already demoralised. Is it fair to ask him--to let him begin life with such a burden--such a handicap? Is it not braver, fairer, to fight it out alone, eradicate what threatens you--oh, my own darling! my little Geraldine!--is it not fairer to the man you love? Is he not worth striving for, suffering for? Have you no courage to endure if he is to be the reward? Is a little selfish weakness, a miserable self-indulgence to stand between you and life-long happiness?" Geraldine looked up; her face was very white: "Have you ever been tempted?" "Have I not been to-night?" "I mean by--something ignoble?" "No." "Do you know how it hurts?" "To--to deny yourself?" "Yes.... It is so--difficult--it makes me wretchedly weak.... I only thought he might help me.... You are right, Kathleen.... I must be terribly demoralised to have wished it. I--I will not marry him, now. I don't think I ever will.... You are right. I have got to be fair to him, no matter what he has been to me.... He has been fearfully unfair. After all, he is only a man.... I couldn't really love a god." CHAPTER XIII AMBITIONS AND LETTERS