I never thought I should hurt you by what I’ve said. What I was foolish enough to think was--that perhaps you--didn’t dislike me. JANET PREECE. Dislike you! Why, there’s no book in the world that’s long enough, and no poetry ever written that’s sweet enough, to match what I think, but can’t say, in gratitude to you and Mrs. Renshaw. WILFRID BRUDENELL. Ah, we don’t want you to thank us, Janet--unless it’s by a tinge of colour in your white face. You make me feel how mean I’ve been to ask for your love. JANET PREECE. Oh, stop, stop! I can’t bear you to say such a thing. WILFRID BRUDENELL. I’ve no right to press you for the reason you can’t love me. JANET PREECE. No, no--don’t, don’t! WILFRID BRUDENELL. I can only guess what’s in your mind. Is it that we’re such new friends to talk of love and marriage? Because, Janet, if we know each other for years I can never alter the truth, that it took only a minute to fall in love with you. JANET PREECE. No, it isn’t that you’re a new friend; for the matter o’ that, after Mrs. Renshaw, you’re my only friend. It isn’t that--it isn’t that. WILFRID BRUDENELL. Then, if we’re your only friends, at least I know that you don’t love any other---- JANET PREECE. [_Starting up and hiding her face from him._] Any other! WILFRID BRUDENELL. Any other--man. JANET PREECE. No--no. I don’t--I don’t love any other man. WILFRID BRUDENELL. And yet you can’t love _me_. I’m answered. Ah, Janet, a man who isn’t loved had better never seek the reason, or if he does he should look for it--in himself. My brother-in-law will be home in a few minutes and I can very well be spared here. So there’s one thing I beg of you, that you won’t let this--stupidity of mine shorten your stay at the Villa Colobiano. JANET PREECE. [_Bursting into tears._] I can’t bear it! My heart will break! WILFRID BRUDENELL. You seemed in bitter trouble when we first met; don’t leave us till we have helped to make life easier for you. JANET PREECE. Oh, if we never had met--if we never had met! WILFRID BRUDENELL. Why, I’ve done nothing but love you, Janet. Come, you’re not cruel enough to wish you had never seen me? JANET PREECE. Ah, no! No! Believe me, the only happiness for such as I is in such wretchedness as this. Bid me good-bye--I am going. WILFRID BRUDENELL. No! JANET PREECE. Let me steal away quietly. Tell your sister that I pray God to bless her, her husband, and her children when they come to make her life perfect; say I am only a poor creature never worth the love I’ve stolen from you both, but that my thoughts will be only of you and her till I die. WILFRID BRUDENELL. No, you must not leave the house till you have seen Leslie. JANET PREECE. Don’t keep me here! If I see her again I must tell her why I run away from the one sweet prospect my life has given me! WILFRID BRUDENELL. You do love me then! You _do_ love me! [_He draws her to him, but she breaks away with a low cry as LESLIE enters._]