"The law of being," Reginald replied, almost sadly, "the law of my
being. I should have pitied you, but the eternal reproach of your
suffering only provoked my anger. I cared less for you every day, and
when I had absorbed all of you that my growth required, you were to me
as one dead, as a stranger you were. There was between us no further
community of interest; henceforth, I knew, our lives must move in
totally different spheres. You remember that day when we said good-bye?"
"You mean that day when I lay before you on my knees," she corrected
him.
"That day I buried my last dream of personal happiness. I would have
gladly raised you from the floor, but love was utterly gone. If I am
tenderer to-day than I am wont to be, it is because you mean so much to
me as the symbol of my renunciation. When I realised that I could not
even save the thing I loved from myself, I became hardened and cruel to
others. Not that I know no kindly feeling, but no qualms of conscience
lay their prostrate forms across my path.
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