Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 5.pdf/462

Rh "Yes?" she said.

"Does he—ask to be released?"

"No He wants to come back to me."

"And you"

"He doesn't come."

"But do you—do you want him back?"

"How can I say, Mr. Melville? He does not say certainly even that he wants to come back."

My cousin Melville looked perplexed. He lived on the superficies of emotion, and these complexities in matters he had always assumed were simple, put him out.

"There are times," she said, "when it seems to me that my love for him is altogether dead Think of the disillusionment—the shock—the discovery of such weakness."

My cousin lifted his eyebrows and shook his head in agreement.

"His feet—to find his feet were of clay!"

There came a pause.

"It seems as if I have never loved him. And then—and then I think of all the things that still might be."

Her voice made him look up, and he saw that her mouth was set hard and tears were running down her cheeks.

It occurred to my cousin, he says, that he would touch her hand in a sympathetic manner, and then it occurred to him that he wouldn't. Her words rang in his thoughts for a space, and then he said somewhat tardily, "He may still be all those things."

"I suppose he may," she said slowly and without colour. The weeping moment had passed.