From that apparently engrossing occupation, he looked up with a sudden jerk of his head.

“You mustn’t come here again,” he said, without force, without feeling of any sort.

She leant back against the pillow, holding a breath in her throat, and her eyes wandered like a child that is frightened around the room, passing his face and passing it again, yet fearing to rest upon it for any appreciable moment of time.

When she found that he was going to say no more, she asked him why.  Just the one word, breathed rather than spoken, no complaint, no rebellion, the pitiable simplicity of the question that the man puts to his Fate, the woman to her Maker.

“Why?”

He at least was holding himself in harness that she knew nothing of—­the curb and snaffle, with the reins held tightly across fingers of iron.

“Why?” he repeated.  “If you don’t know human nature, would it be wise, do you think, for me to spell it out to you?”

She knit her brows, trying to see, trying to think, but finding nothing save the blank and gaping question.  Through her mind it swept, that her fainting was some cause of it.  She could not really believe that that could have brought so much abhorrence to his mind; yet she tried it.  To say anything, to propose any cause, she struggled for that in order to know the why.

“It was because I fainted?” she said quickly.  “You hate a woman to be weak; I know I was weak; you hate scenes of that sort.  Do you think I can’t understand it?” She worked herself into the belief that this was the reason, and her spirit of defence rose with it.  “Of course I can understand.  If I were a man, I should hate it too!  But you’re quite wrong if you think I shall get unnerved again, as I did this—­”

“It’s not that at all!” he said firmly.  “Do you think I’m such a fool, do you even think I’m such a brute as to blame you, to think poorly, inconsiderately of you for something that was entirely my own fault?  I shouldn’t have let myself be carried away by the excitement of that fight.  There are many things I shouldn’t have done beside that.  I shouldn’t have stopped as I passed along King Street that night.  When I saw that little gold head of yours in the window, I should have gone on, taken no notice.  I shouldn’t have followed, I shouldn’t have spoken to you as I did.”

“But why?” she entreated.

He gripped the bowl of his pipe in his fingers.  “For the very reason you gave me yourself, on the ’bus that day, and afterwards when we were having lunch together.”

“What was that?”

“That I didn’t know you.”

She looked her bewilderment.  “I don’t understand,” she said simply.

“Then I can explain no further.  We must leave it at that.”

“Oh! but why can’t you explain?” She had nearly added, “When it means so much to me,” but shut her teeth, drew in her breath on the words, inducing the physical act to aid her in preventing their utterance.