s?
"You fear the world too much," she answered, gently." All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid
reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?
"What then?" he retorted. "Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then? I am not changed towards you."
She shook her head.
"Am I?
"Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor and content to be so, until, in good season, we could improve our world
fortune by our patient industry. You are changed. When it was made, you were another man."
"I was a boy," he said impatiently.
"Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are," she returned. I am. That which promised happiness when we were one in heart, is
fraught with misery now that we are two. How often and how keenly I have thought of this, I will not say. It is enough that I have thought of it
and can release you."