"What is the matter?" she asked, simply.
"Everything. I hardly know how to begin to tell you. Yet I must. Perhaps
you'll think I shouldn't have waited till now. But there's been no
chance--at least, I----"
"No, there's been no chance for us to talk, or even to think very much
about ourselves," Victoria tried to reassure him. "Begin just as you
like. Whatever you say, whatever you have to tell, I won't
misunderstand."
"First of all, then," Stephen said, "you know I love you. Only you don't
know how much. I couldn't tell you that, any more than I could tell how
much water there is in the ocean. I didn't know myself that it was
possible to love like this, and such a love might turn the world into
heaven. But because I am what I am, and because I've done what I have
done, it's making mine hell. Wait--you said you wouldn't misunderstand!
The man who loves you ought to offer some sort of spiritual gold and
diamonds, but I've got only a life half spoiled to offer you, if you'll
take it. And before I can even ask you to take it, I'll have to explain
how it's spoiled."
Victoria did not speak, but still looked at him with that look of an
expectant, anxious child, which made him long to snatch her up and turn
his back forever on the world where there was a Margot Lorenzi, and
gossiping people, and newspapers.
But he had to go on. "There's a woman," he said, "who--perhaps she cares
for me--I don't know.
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