Page:E Nesbit - The Literary Sense.djvu/115

Rh my God! my God! what shall I say to him? Oh, God help me!"

She had said enough. The one phrase "If I am not the same woman you loved, still I am more like her than anyone else in the world" had struck straight at his heart. It was true. What if this, the second best, were now the best life had to offer? If he threw this away, would any other woman be able to inspire him with any sentiment more like love than this passion of memory, regret, tenderness, pity—this desire to hold, protect, and comfort, with which, ever since her tears fell on his hand, he had been fighting in fierce resentment. He looked at the huddled grey figure. He must decide—now, at this moment—he must decide for two lives.

But before he had time to decide anything he found that he had taken her in his arms.

"My own, my dear," he was saying again and again, "I didn't mean it. It wasn't true. I love you better than anything. Let's forget it all. I don't care for anything now I have you again."

"Then why—"