Try as he would, he could not keep his own eyes in leash; something irresistible made him lift them to meet her gaze.  For a moment they looked at each other in a mute search for something neither was able to describe.  He could not hold out against the pleading, troubled, questioning eyes, bent so solemnly upon his own.  The wounds in her heart, because of his indifference, strange and unaccountable to her, gaped in those blue orbs.

A tremendous revulsion of feeling took possession of him; what he had been subduing for weeks gained supremacy in an instant.  He half rose to his feet as if to rush over and crush her in his arms, but a mightier power than his emotion held him back.  That same unseen, mysterious power compelled him to turn about and almost run from the temple, leaving her chilled and distressed by his action.  The power that checked him was Memory.

She was deeply hurt by this last impulsive exhibition of disregard.  A bewildering sense of loneliness oppressed her.  He despised her!  All the world grew black for her.  All the light went out of her heart.  He despised her!  There was a faintness in her knees when she essayed to arise from the hammock.  A little cry of anguish left her lips; a hunted, friendless look came into her eyes.

Staggering to the end of the temple, she looked in the direction he had taken.  Far down the line of hills she saw him standing on a little elevation, his back toward her, his face to the river.  Some strong influence drew her to him.  Out of this influence grew the wild, unquenchable desire to understand.  Hardly realizing what she did, she hurried through the growing dusk toward the motionless figure.  As she came nearer a strange timidity, an embarrassment she had never felt before, seized upon her and her footsteps slackened.

He had not seen her.  A panicky inclination to fly back to the temple came over her.  In her heart welled a feeling of resentment.  Had he any right to forget what she had done for him?

He heard her, turned swiftly, and—­trembled in every joint.  They were but a few paces apart and she was looking unwaveringly into his eyes.

“I have followed you out here to ask why you treat me so cruelly,” she said after a long silence which she Bought to break but could not.  He distinguished in this pathetic command, meant to be firm and positive, the tremor of tears.

“I—­I do not treat you cruelly, Tennys,” he answered disjointly, still looking at the slight, graceful figure, as if unable to withdraw his eyes.

“What do you call it?” she asked bitterly.

“You wrong me—­” he began.

“Wrong you?  No, I do not.  You saved me from the sea and you have done much for me until within the past few weeks.  I had begun to forget that I am here because fate substituted me for another.  Hugh, do not let your love for Grace and your regret at not having saved her turn you against me.  I am not here because I could have helped it.  You must know that I—­”