"Philip has never ceased to love you. He may have lost his head for a little while, when fortune visited him almost without knocking at the door. The other day the faults were on his side, now they are more on yours. You are unjust, cruel to him, cruel to yourself. Your obstinacy, my dear Dora, bids fair to put an end to the pair of you. Yes, that is the point things have come to; now, do you hear what I say? His despair and repentance ought to touch you; what he did in Paris the other day ought to satisfy you. He lives only in the hope of your forgiveness, in the hope of your return." "Philip did not hesitate to thrust me into the arms of a libertine. If I had yielded to that man's hateful desires, Philip would probably never have destroyed the contract." "Hold your tongue, Dora!" cried Lorimer; "you are uttering blasphemies. You have allowed a silly idea, an absurd suspicion to gain an entrance into your head, and, like a grain of sand in the eye, it has carried on its irritating work till it has blotted out your vision, and you can see nothing except this molecule that seems to have turned into a mountain. Take care, Dora, or your mountain will crush you as well as blind you. Do you know that by obstinately refusing to listen to reason, a woman cuts herself off from friendly sympathy? People cease to take an interest in her woes. If you wish to alienate the sympathy of your most devoted friends, you are going the right way to work." "I do not need anyone's sympathy," replied Dora proudly; "and I do not ask for it." "Once more, Dora, listen to me. Philip may have neglected you, in order to throw himself body and soul into that invention which absorbed him night and day. But, remember, such a piece of work as that is a very exacting, inexorable mistress. You felt his indifference keenly, and it wounded you--the rest exists in your imagination alone. Now the mistress is discarded, cast out completely. Let the artist return again to his easel at your side." "Never, oh, never!" cried Dora. "Ah, my dear Gerald, if you only knew how I loved that man!" "And how you still love him," ventured Lorimer. Dora rose suddenly, the thrust had not miscarried. "I am sorry if it hurts you, but it is the truth," added Lorimer, with a significant smile. "What do you mean?" demanded Dora, who thought Lorimer's remark somewhat out of place, and a little over-familiar. "Come now, sit down here in front of me, your friend. You know I am a bit of a student of human nature, it is my stock-in-trade. My dear Dora, do not attempt to throw dust in your own eyes--you love Philip still; everything in this room testifies aloud to the feeling that you cannot stifle. Oh, do not start, do not deny it. If I am not right, what is the meaning of all this that I see around us?" "In these surroundings I can evoke the Philip of the past, and that helps me to forget the Philip of the present."