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II]

[Touches her shoulder.] Tell me if the air is too cold for you. [Half rising.] I will close it.

[Detaining him.] No. I am not cold. Besides, I am going now, Robert. I must.

[Firmly.] No, no. There is no must now. We were left here for this. And you are wrong. Bertha. The past is not past. It is present here now. My feeling for you is the same now as it was then, because then—you slighted it.

No, Robert. I did not.

[Continuing.] You did. And I have felt it all these years without knowing it—till now. Even while I lived—the kind of life you know and dislike to think of—the kind of life to which you condemned me.

I?

Yes, when you slighted the common simple gift I had to oifer you—and took his gift instead.

[Looking at him.] But you never

No. Because you had chosen him. I saw that. I saw it on the first night we met, we three together. Why did you choose him?

[Bends her head.] Is that not love?