“Love--such love as mine--and for such a woman--and with such love in return--drag down? Impossible!”
“Not so--not exactly so, though I must say you are plausible. But don’t forget that you and she are not starting out to make a career. Don’t forget that she is already fixed--her tastes, habits, friendships, associations, ideals already formed. Don’t forget that your love is the only bond between you--and that it may drag you toward her mode of life instead of drawing her towards yours. Don’t forget that your own associations and temptations are becoming more and more difficult. I repeat, you cringed--yes, cringed--when Stokely insulted you. Why?”
“And,” the Visitor went on relentlessly, “let me remind you that not only did you give her up without a struggle a few months ago but also she gave you up without a word.”
“I don’t know, I’m sure. I’m not familiar with ways feminine. But I know--we know--that, if there had not been some reservation in her love, some hesitation about you--unconscious, perhaps, but powerful enough to make her yield--she would not have let you go as she did.”
“But she did not realise, as I did not, how much our love meant to us.”
“Perhaps--that sounds well. All I ask is, will she help you? Are you really so much stronger than you were only four months ago? Or are you stimulated by success? Suppose that days of disaster, of peril, come? What then?”
“But they will not. I have won a position. I can always command a large salary--perhaps not quite so much but still a large salary.”
“Perhaps--if you don’t trouble yourself about principles. But how would it be if you would do nothing, write nothing, except what you think is honest? Would you ask her to face it? Tell me, tell yourself honestly, have you the right to assume a responsibility you may not be able to bear, to invite temptations you may not be able to resist?”
There was a long silence. At last Howard stood up and flung his cigar into the sea. His face was drawn and his eyes burned.
“God in heaven!” he cried, “am I not human? May I not have companionship and sympathy and love? Must I be alone and friendless and loveless always? That is not life; that is not just. I will not; I will not. I love her--love her--love her. With the best that there is in me, I love her. Am I such a coward that I cannot face even my own weaknesses?”