“Lois! Is it not in you to love me as a woman loves a man?”

“I told you that when the time arrived I would doubtless be what you wish me to be — — ”

“You can love me, then?”

“How do I know? You perplex and vex me. Who else would I love but you? Who else is there in the world — except my mother?”

There was a silence; then I said:

“Has this passionate quest of her so wholly absorbed and controlled you that all else counts as nothing?”

“Yes, yes! You know it. You knew it at Otsego! Nothing else matters. I will not permit anything else to matter! And, lest you deem me cold, thankless, inhuman, ask of yourself, Euan, why such a lonely girl as I should close her eyes and stop her ears and lock her heart and —