(continued)

`You fear the world too much,' she answered, gently.  `All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach.  I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion, Gain, engrosses you.  Have I not?'

`What then?' he retorted.  `Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then?  I am not changed towards you.'

She shook her head.

`Am I?'

`Our contract is an old one.  It was made when we were both poor and content to be so, until, in good season, we could improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry.  You are changed.  When it was made, you were another man.'

`I was a boy,' he said impatiently.

`Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are,' she returned.  `I am.  That which promised happiness when we were one in heart, is fraught with misery now that we are two.  How often and how keenly I have thought of this, I will not say.  It is enough that I have thought of it, and can release you.'

`Have I ever sought release?'

`In words?  No.  Never.'

`In what, then?'

`In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another atmosphere of life; another Hope as its great end.  In everything that made my love of any worth or value in your sight.  If this had never been between us,' said the girl, looking mildly, but with steadiness, upon him; `tell me, would you seek me out and try to win me now?  Ah, no!'

He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, in spite of himself.  But he said with a struggle, `You think not.'

`I would gladly think otherwise if I could,' she answered, `Heaven knows.  When I have learned a Truth like this, I know how strong and irresistible it must be.  But if you were free to-day, to-morrow, yesterday, can even I believe that you would choose a dowerless girl—you who, in your very confidence with her, weigh everything by Gain:  or, choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your one guiding principle to do so, do I not know that your repentance and regret would surely follow.  I do; and I release you.  With a full heart, for the love of him you once were.'

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