"I do not ask you to die; I ask you to leave me alone--a much easiermatter."

"But how can I leave you alone when you are a part of me, when--I loveyou? There, the truth is out, and now say what you will."

Georgeita lifted the bucket of water; its weight seemed to steady her.Then she put it down again, since escape was impracticable; she mustface the situation.

"I have nothing to say, Mr. Meyer, except that /I/ do not love /you/or any living man, and I never shall. I thank you for the complimentyou have paid me, and there is an end."

"Any living man," he repeated after her. "That means you love a deadman--Seymour, he whom was drowned. No wonder that I hated him whenfirst my eyes fell on him months ago, long before you had come into ourlives. Prescience, the sub-conscious self again. Well, what is the useof loving the dead, those whom no longer have any existence, whom havegone back into the clay out of which they were formed and are not, norevermore shall be? You have but one life; turn, turn to the living,and make it happy."

"I do not agree with you, Mr. Meyer. To me the dead are still living;one day I shall find them. Now let me go."

"I will not let you go. I will plead and wrestle with you as in theold fable my namesake of my own race wrestled with the angel, until atlength you bless me. You despise me because I am a Jew, because I always havehad many adventures and not succeeded; because you think me mad. But Itell you that there is the seed of greatness in me. Give yourself tome and I will make you great, for now I know that it was you whom Ineeded to supply what is lacking in my nature. We will win the wealth,and together we will rule----"

"Until a few days hence we starve or the Matabele make an end of us.No, Mr. Meyer, no," and she tried to push past him.