Why not now take the short, quick road to mastery?
But instantly that love which seeketh not its own, the strange new
sense so recently awakened in him, laid its calm touch upon his
throbbing heart. Until that moment in the crypt the day before, he had
loved Mora for his own delight, sought her for his own joy. Now, he
knew that he could take no happiness at the cost of one pang to her.
"She must be taught not to shudder," cried the masterfulness which was
his by nature.
"She must be given no cause to shudder," amended this new, loyal
tenderness, which now ruled his every thought of her.
Presently, returning to the arbour, he found her seated, her elbows on
the table, her chin cupped in her hands.
She had been weeping; yet her smile of welcome, as he entered, held a
quality he had scarce expected.
He spoke straight to the point. It seemed the only way to step clear
of immeshing trammels.
"Mora, it cuts me to the heart that, in striving to be honest with you,
I have all unwittingly trampled upon those flower-beds in which you
long had tended fair blossoms of memory. Also I fear this knowledge of
a nobler love, makes it hard for you to contemplate life linked to a
love which seems to you less able for self-sacrifice."
She gazed at him, wide-eyed, in sheer amazement.
"Dear Knight," she said, "true, I am disillusioned, but not in aught
that concerns you. You trampled on no flower-beds of mine.
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