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 “I love you, Andromeda,” he repeated. “Don’t you understand? You have become dearer to me than anything on earth.”

“Unworthy me.”

But he would not listen to her self-depreciation, and presently she was laughing up into his face. This tender lover—how she had learnt to adore him! Memory played strange pranks; recollection would not be denied.

“But it’s all past,” she whispered; “for the first time in my life I see the light.”

Again evil had brought forth good. Not the good of the creeds and the churches, maybe; there was no thought of melodramatic penance, no longing for conventional renunciation. This love, so lightly approached, had suddenly become the most serious thing in life. Suddenly —no! She knew now that it had been gradually stealing upon her like a sweet stream of light. Wild dreams merged into tender realities; if she could not be one of the great lovers of history, she could be one of the true lovers in life. After all, what was there like this love for the man whose very being had crept into her blood? Great lovers! Was she not, then, one of the greatest lovers that ever lived? For