‘Your pity is heavenly,’ he said brokenly; ’but give me more, give me more!  I want your love!’

She gave a little start and cry, and, drawing away her hands from him, sank back on her chair.  Her thoughts went flying back to the past—­to the stretches of Surrey common, to the Nuneham woods, and all she had ever seen or imagined of his feelings towards her.  She had never, never suspected him of loving her.  She had sent him her friendly messages from Venice in the simplest good faith; she had joined in his sister’s praises of him without a moment’s self-consciousness.  His approval of her play in Elvira had given her the same frank pleasure that a master’s good word gives to a pupil—­and all the time he had loved her—­loved her!  How strange! how incredible!

Kendal followed, bent over her, listened, but no word came.  She was, indeed, too bewildered and overwhelmed to speak.  The old bitter fear and certainty began to assert itself against the overmastering impulse which had led him on.

‘I have startled you—­shocked you,’ he cried.  ’I ought not to have spoken—­and at such a time.  It was your pity overcame me—­your sweet womanly kindness.  I have loved you, I think, ever since that first evening after the White Lady.  At least, when I look back upon my feeling, I see that it was love from the beginning.  After that day at Nuneham I knew that it was love; but I would not acknowledge it; I fought against it.  It seemed to me that you would never forget that I had been harsh, that I had behaved rather like an enemy than a friend.  But you did forget—­you showed me how noble a woman could be, and every day after we parted in July I loved you more.  I thought of you all the summer when I was buried in the Country—­my days and nights were full of you.  Then when your great success came—­it was base of me—­but all the time while I was sending my congratulations to you through my sister at Venice, I was really feeling that there was no more hope for me, and that some cruel force was carrying you away from me.  Then came Elvira—­and I seemed to give you up for ever.’

Her hands dropped from her face, and her great hazel eyes were fixed upon him with that intent look he remembered long ago when she had asked him for the ‘truth’ about herself and her position.  But there was no pain in it now; nothing but wonder and a sweet moved questioning.

‘Why?’ The word was just breathed through her parted lips.

Kendal heard it with a start—­the little sound loosed his speech and made him eloquent.

’Why?  Because I thought you must inevitably be absorbed, swallowed up by the great new future before you; because my own life looked so gray and dull beside yours.  I felt it impossible you should stoop from your height to love me, to yield your bright self to me, to give me heart for heart.  So I went away that I might not trouble you.  And then’—­his voice sank lower still—­’came the summons to Paris, and Marie on her death-bed tried to make me hope.  And just now your pity drew the heart out of my lips.  Let me hear you forgive me.’