In Which is No Rapprochement With the Fair Captive

"What's wrong with you?" she asked, frowning slightly, as it seemed to
me.

"Everything in the world is wrong with me, as you know very well,"
said I. "Am I not a poor man? Am I not an unsuccessful lover? Am I not
a failure under every test which you can apply? Am I not a coward--did
you not tell me so yourself?"

Her eyes grew damp slowly. "I didn't mean it," said she.

"Then why did you say it?"

"It was long before--that was before last night, Harry. You forget."

"What if it was?" I demanded. "I was the same man then that I was last
night."

"I didn't mean it, Harry," said she, her voice low. Her hand was still
on my arm. Her eye now was cast down, the tip of her toe was tracing a
circle on the wet sand where we stood.

"I didn't think," said she, after a little while.

"I presume not," said I coldly. "Sometimes women do not stop to think.
You have not stopped to think that there is a limit even to what my
love would stand, Helena. Now, much as I love you--and I never loved
you so much as I do now--I'll never again ask you for what you can not
give me. I've been rubbed the wrong way all I can stand, and I'll not
have it any more. I've brought you here, yes, and I'm sorry enough for
it. But I'm going to fix all that now, soon as I can."