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 do a thing which immediately I bitterly regretted. Don’t you think it must have been hard for me, under the actual circumstances, to confess my fault?”

“I wish you not to speak of it. I don’t want to think of that horrible scene.”

“If you knew how lonely I was and how unhappy, you would have a little mercy.”

His voice was strangely moved. She could not doubt now that he was sincere.

“You think me a charlatan because I aim at things that are unknown to you. You won’t try to understand. You won’t give me any credit for striving with all my soul to a very great end.”

She made no reply, and for a time there was silence. His voice was different now and curiously seductive.

“You look upon me with disgust and scorn. You almost persuaded yourself to let me die in the street rather than stretch out to me a helping hand. And if you hadn’t been merciful then, almost against your will, I should have died.”

“It can make no difference to you how I regard you,” she whispered.

She did not know why his soft, low tones mysteriously wrung her heartstrings. Her pulse began to beat more quickly.

“It makes all the difference in the world. It is horrible to think of your contempt. I feel your goodness and your purity. I can hardly bear my own unworthiness. You turn your eyes away from me as though I were unclean.”