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Rh velope. Without hesitation she took it, bent forward and dropped the unopened letter into the hottest part of the fire.

"Why did you do that? Were you afraid I should want to read it?" demanded Basil.

"No. I'm tired of all that."

"Of what? Not of his letters?"

"Yes—everything about it. It doesn't matter " "But it does …!"

"I tell you it doesn't! What you do matters more, because you don't love me as much as I do you."

"Love me? You're in love with Crayven!"

"You've let me nearly die this last month of your indifference …" A sob broke Teresa's voice. "I tell you I can't live in that way. If you didn't love me"

"Someone else would, I suppose."

"No, if you didn't, I should die. I have been dying this last month—I've been really ill. Look at me—do you see how thin I am?"

She sprang up and went close to Basil.

"I see that you're beautiful," he said softly. "Ah, you have me! …"

"Then be good to me! We shan't live forever!" "I feel that I've lived a hundred years or so."

She answered with Lady Macbeth's appeal: "'We are but young'!"

And half-smiling, passionately, she drew him