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 discussion must be as painful to you as it surely is to me.”

“Then I am right?” I persisted. “I have thrown away my chance?”

Miss Berrith made no reply.

“Isn’t that the plain truth of it?” I asked.

“You force me into being so unpleasant as to say it is,” she answered. “I am sorry to hurt your feelings, but — but women are not won that way, Mr. Sands. You did not like it when I once said I thought you were pathetic, but that is how you seemed to me. You have been doing your best all along to rub the bloom off life for yourself, and turn your back upon the essence of it, and in the attempt it would be strange if you did not rush in to some places where angels fear to tread. That you were all alone, and endeavouring to make a few cut-and-dried opinions on the advantages of celibacy take the place of all the greatest and most beautiful realities of life —wasn’t that pathetic? I was very far from