‘If she loves another man, tell me, and I shall be satisfied. I don’t want to know his name, but if he is poor let me make him rich. More than anything in the world, even more than my own happiness, I seek her welfare. I love her, White, and mine is not a selfish love.’ ‘You are wrong, dear friend. She loves no one else. Poor child! She has never known what love is, and she never will know it.’ Something in White’s manner at last awoke the other’s suspicion and wonder. The face of the poor fellow was so utterly forlorn, his words and gestures so extraordinary, that Forster began to share his agitation. ‘There is some mystery. Cannot I know it?’ ‘Impossible. But you are right.’ ‘Does it concern Madeline herself?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Her friends and relations?’ ‘No.’ ‘For God’s sake, tell me--that is, if it can be told.’ White fell back in his chair, and let his hands drop heedlessly by his side, ‘It cannot be told. My poor darling! It is something in her past life.’ There he paused in despair. But Forster, himself trembling violently, touched him on the arm. ‘Her past life? What is that to me? I know nothing of it, and I seek to know nothing. If there is any page in her life she wishes me not to read, let her close the book; I will never ask her to open it. I love her too absolutely not to be content with what she is, the sweetest and purest woman I have ever known.’ ‘You think her pure? So she is, God knows.’ ‘I think she is worthy to be a queen. I think I am not worthy to tie her shoe-strings. But this does not prevent me loving her; it only makes my love something like idolatry. Don’t think that it is mere infatuation. I know my own mind well, and I shall never change.’ More followed in the same strain, but Forster did not succeed in eliciting any further explanation. So White remained the very picture of misery, and, with his eyes full of tears, wrung the merchant’s hand again and again, uttering wild professions of personal attachment. Some hours later they parted. White, with somewhat unsteady steps, for he had drunk liberally, made his way to his favourite club. Forster walked rapidly to Piccadilly, and, entering an omnibus, rode in sad reverie to South Kensington. A footman in gorgeous livery admitted the plain man into his princely home; and along a lobby hung with choice pictures, up a staircase ornamented with some of the most perfect specimens of modern sculpture, he found his way to the drawing-room, where his sister Margaret was sitting in solitary state.