"My friend," she cried with an infinite pain in her voice, "how can you force me to such a decision when you know all the difficulties of my life? How can you thus forget that I have a husband?" "I do not forget it," he answered bitterly, "I cannot forget it. It is an eternal demonstration of the madness of faith in any kind of Providence. It makes me hate an order which unites a lion to a lamb, and marries a dove to a hawk! You say that you loathe this man! Then leave him and come with me! The world lies before us. We are as free as those clouds!" "We are not free, and neither are they," she answered. "Something binds them to their pathway, as it binds me to mine. I cannot leave it. I must tread it even though I have to tread it alone." "You can leave it if you will; but if you will not, I must know the reason why." "Oh! why will you not see? I have tried so hard to show you! I have told you that there is a voice which speaks within my soul, that to it I must listen and that the inward light of which you told me shines upon the path and I must follow it." "I could curse that inward light! Must I be always confronted by the ravings of my youth? All my life long must the words of my credulous childhood hang about my neck like a millstone? There is no inward light. You are living a delusion. You are restrained by the conventionalities of life and are the slave of the customs of society. Because the miserable herd of mankind is willing to submit to that galling yoke of marriage, does it follow that you must? By what right can society demand that men and women who abhor each other should be doomed to pass their lives in hopeless agony? Against such laws I protest! I defy those customs. The path of life is short. We go this way but once! Who is to refuse us all the joy that we can find? There will be sorrow enough, any way!" "Oh! my friend, do not talk so! Do not break my heart! Have pity on me. I know that it is hard for you; but it is I who have to suffer most. It is I who must continually exert this terrible resistance which alone keeps us from being swept away. Have mercy, David! Spare me a little longer. Spare me this one day at least. If any troubled heart had ever need of the rest and peace of such a day as this, it is mine! Let us give ourselves up to these soothing influences. Let us wander. Let us dream and let us love." "Love! This accursed Platonic affection is not love," he answered savagely.