“I do mean it,” I cried, with a frantic repulsion.  “I wish you had not brought me here.  Please get up and let me go.  I tell you I am frightened of you.”

He got up and stood a little bit away from me, looking at me in a shocked bewilderment.

“But you are going to marry me?” he said.  “And this is to be our home together.  And you accepted me of your own free will.  Do girls in love behave like this to their lovers?”

“You should not have frightened me,” I cried, bursting into tears.  “You should not have brought me here.  How can you say I accepted you of my own free will when it is killing me?  You know that I accepted you because your father holds a disgraceful secret and has frightened the life out of my grandfather and grandmother.  I had to do it for them because they were old and it would kill them if the disgrace were published.”

It had never entered into my mind that he could be in ignorance of how his father had constrained us, but now it flashed on my amazed mind that he had not known at all.

“Good God!” he said.  “Good God!” and stood staring at me with a grey face.

I was frightened then of the mischief I had done, and sorry for him too.

“I thought you knew,” I stammered.

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE END OF IT

I saw in the momentary pause that his dog came up beside him and licked his hand and he did not seem to notice her.

“You thought I knew,” he repeated, his colour becoming a dull purple.  “You thought I knew.  And I thought your shrinking from me was but maiden modesty, and that if you did not love me you were going to love me.  Why, when you trembled in my arms as I lifted you through the door I thought it was love; and all the time it was horror and repulsion.  What a fool I have been!  But, by Heaven—­I have been fooled too!”

His expression became so wild and furious that I shrank back in my chair and covered my face with my hands.

“You needn’t be afraid of me,” he said; “that is all over.  Come:  there is nothing more to see.  You had better go home.”

He had regained control over himself, although his features still worked and his eyes were bloodshot.  Indeed, he had such a look of suffering that I should have been sorry for him no matter how much I hated him, and now, curiously enough, my hatred seemed to have passed away.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“Send you home,” he replied.

“But you are coming with me?”

“No.  I shall not trouble Aghadoe any more by my presence.  You will be quite safe with the Chauffeur.”

“But what are you going to do?”

“I am not going to cut my throat, if that’s what you are afraid of.  I am going to—­console myself as soon as I can.”

I did not dare ask him how.  He held his arm to me ceremoniously, and I could not help thinking that he could play the fine gentleman after all.  My thoughts were so bewildered that I could not take in yet all that this involved, but seeing that he held his arm to me I took it and went out with him.