"I believe I would have loved her if,--if Gerald Vernor had not come here when she did." "Oh, Denham!" "Yes, Soeur Angelique.

It is a humiliating confession, is it not, that one has wilfully thrown away something that perhaps one might have had, for something that one knows one can never have?
It is sheerest folly.
And to do it with one's eyes open is the maddest folly of all.

Gerald Vernor is as indifferent to me as it is possible for one human creature to be to another.

I hold no more place in her thoughts than had I never existed.

And yet, Soeur Angelique, I am fool enough,--or helpless enough,--whichever you please, to love her.