Then suddenly he broke down.  Speech seemed to fail him.  Only his eyes—­more intense and piercing under their straight brows than she had ever known them—­beseeched her—­his hand sought hers.

She meanwhile sat in a trance of agitation, mistress neither of reason nor of feeling.  She felt his spell, as she had always done.  The woman in her thrilled at last to the mere name and neighbourhood of love.  The heart in her cried out that pain and loss could only be deadened so—­the past could only be silenced by filling the present with movement and warm life.

Yet what tremors of conscience—­what radical distrust of herself and him!  And the first articulate words she found to say to him were very much what she had said to Aldous so long ago—­only filled with a bitterer and more realised content.

“After all, what do we know of each other!  You don’t know me—­not as I am.  And I feel—­”

“Doubts?” he said, smiling.  “Do you imagine that that seems anything but natural to me? I can have none; but you—­After all, we are not quite boy and girl, you and I; we have lived, both of us!  But ask yourself—­has not destiny brought us together?  Think of it all!”

Their eyes met again.  Hers sank under the penetration, the flame of his.  Yet, throughout, he was conscious of the doorway to his right, of the figures incessantly moving across it.  His own eloquence had convinced and moved himself abundantly.  Yet, as he saw her yielding, he was filled with the strangest mixture of passion—­and a sort of disillusion—­almost contempt!  If she had turned from him with the dignity worthy of that head and brow, it flashed across him that he could have tasted more of the abandonment of love—­have explored his own emotion more perfectly.

Still, the situation was poignant enough—­in one sense complete.  Was Raeburn still there—­in that next room?

“My answer?” he said to her, pressing her hand as they sat in the shelter of the flowers.  For he was aware of the practical facts—­the hour, the place—­if she was not.

She roused herself.

“I can’t,” she said, making a movement to rise, which his strong grasp, however, prevented.  “I can’t answer you to-night, Mr. Wharton.  I should have much to think over—­so much!  It might all look quite different to me.  You must give me time.”

“To-morrow?” he said quietly.

“No!” she said impetuously, “not to-morrow; I go back to my work, and I must have quiet and time.  In a fortnight—­not before.  I will write.”

“Oh, impossible!” he said, with a little frown.

And still holding her, he drew her towards him.  His gaze ran over the face, the warm whiteness under the lace of the dress, the beautiful arms.  She shrank from it—­feeling a sudden movement of dislike and fear; but before she could disengage herself he had pressed his lips on the arm nearest to him.