not be if it were anything but an intermediate state. But it is enough
to know that on land our troubles are waiting for us."

She shivered and drew closer to him. The dangerous fire in her eyes
faded.

"Mine are becoming very great," she said. "All I can do is to distract
my mind, to fill up my time."

"And I can do nothing to help you! That is the tragedy of a love like
ours: the more a man loves a woman he cannot marry the more he must
make her suffer--either way; it is simply a choice of methods, and if
he really loves her he chooses the least complicated."

"It is bad enough."

Her eyes filled for the first time in his presence since the morning
of Harriet's death, but her mental temper was very different, and she
looked at him steadily through her tears.

"_I_ cannot help _you_," she said. "That is the hardest part. You are
harassed in many ways, and you are dreading the bitterness of a
greater defeat than today. I could be so much to you--so much. And I
can be nothing. By that time you will have ceased to come here. I know
that you mean not to come again after to-night, except when the house
is full of company."

He began to answer, but stopped. She felt his heart against her arm,
and his lips burnt her hand, his eyes her own.