Might she not have changed?
might she not have struggled for the mastery of this feeling with only too certain success?
might she not have learned to regard him with esteem, perchance,--with friendship,--sentiment,--anything but that which he desired or would claim at her hands?
Silence and absence and time are pitiless destructives.

Might they not?
Aye, might they not?
He paced to and fro, with quick, restless tread, at the thought.

All his love and his longing cried out against such a cruel supposition.

He stopped by the side of the bookcase against which she had fallen in that merciless and suffering struggle, and put his hand down on the little projection, which he knew had once cut and wounded her, with a strong, passionate clasp, as though it were herself he held.

Just then he heard a step,--her step, yet how unlike!--coming down the stairs.