And I encouraged myself in a thin streak of patronising sentiment for you.

I wrote a little cursed sonnet in the train how old affection outlasts youthful passion, like violets blooming in autumn.

How loathsome! How incredibly base! And then, when my temper is aroused by your opposition, I am dastardly enough, heartless enough to try to humiliate you by shewing you those letters, to try to revenge myself on you.

On you, Magdalen! On you! On you!" She did not speak nor move.

Her face was awed, as the face of one who watches beside the pangs of death or--birth.
Outside in the amber sunset a thrush piped.
"Magdalen," he said almost inarticulately, "you have never repulsed me.
Don't repulse me now, for I am very miserable.