"No, yes--I don't really know. And what you said is true, is it not--you don't love me?"
"You were very cruel," I said. "You knew why I came here--knew that the doctor had written my death-warrant before I came. It is nearly a year since I came here, and a year was all Dr. Rhomboid gave me to live. To-day I feel as though the doctor's prophecy will be fulfilled."
"That you will die before the year is out?" she almost gasped.
"Yes," I said. "That was why it was cruel of you to seek to play with a dying man's heart. But you didn't succeed; you fascinated, you almost made me love you. If you had done so, you would have added mockery to mockery. But I never loved you, I only loved the woman you were meant to be, the woman you ought to be."
I saw anger, astonishment, and yearning, besides a hundred other things for which I could find no words, in her eyes as I spoke. For a moment she seemed to be struggling to find some answer to give me. Then she burst out angrily, almost furiously:
"Blind to what?" I asked. "You care nothing for me, and you know it. You need not tell me so; I can see it in your eyes. You have won the love of other men only to discard it."
"Mr. Erskine," she said, "do you remember our first conversation?"
"The one when I first dined at your house?" I asked.
"No, the one when we met in the field yonder. It is nearly a year ago."
"Yes, I remember. You said you didn't believe that there was such a thing as love--although even then you were trying to make me lose my heart to you."
"I told you," she went on, "that some of us were born into the world handicapped, and I asked you whether, seeing nature had prevented us from getting our desires in natural ways, we were not justified in overstepping conventional boundaries."
"Yes," I replied, "I remember. But I never could understand what you meant."
"No," she went on, "you were blind, blind! I don't think a man can understand a woman. You were at the prayer-meeting the other night--do you believe in God?"
"I think there must be a God," I said. "I have just come from Mr. and Mrs. Searle's house. They have lost their boy; he has been killed in the war. They have no doubt about God's existence, they were even rejoicing in their sorrow; and it is all because God is real to them. Yes, I think there must be a God."