‘Fear to say to me?’ Wilfrid repeated, gravely, though without apprehension.  ‘Has your suffering made strangers of us?’

’Not in the way you mean, but it has so changed my life that I cannot meet you as I should have done.’  Her utterance quickened; her voice lost its steadiness.  ’Will you be very generous to me—­as good and noble as it is in your heart to be?  I ask you to give me back my promise—­to release me.

‘Emily!’

He gazed at her in bewilderment.  His thought was that she was not herself; her manner since his entrance seemed to confirm it; the tortured lines of her face seemed to express illusory fears.

‘Emily!  Do you know what you say, dearest?’

’Yes; I know what I say, and I know how hard you find it to believe me.  If I could explain to you what it is that makes this change, you would not wonder at it, you would understand, you would see that I am doing the only thing I can do.  But I cannot give you my reasons; that must be my sad secret to the end of my life.  You feel you have a claim to hear the truth; indeed, indeed, you have; but you will be forbearing and generous.  Release me, Wilfrid; I ask it as the last and greatest proof of the love you gave me.’

He rose with a gesture of desperation.

’Emily, I cannot bear this!  You are ill, my own darling; I should have waited till you were stronger.  I should have left you more time to turn your thoughts to me from these terrible things you have passed through.’  He flung himself by her side, grasping her hands passionately.  ’Dear one, how you have suffered!  It kills me to look into your face.  I won’t speak; let me only stay by you, like this, for a few minutes.  Will not my love calm you—­love the purest and tenderest that man ever felt?  I would die to heal your heart of its grief!’

With a great sob of uttermost anguish, she put back his hands, rose from the chair, and stood apart.  Wilfrid rose and gazed at her in dread.  Had the last calamity of human nature fallen upon her?  He looked about, as if for aid.  Emily read his thoughts perfectly; they helped her to a desperate composure.

‘Wilfrid,’ she said, ‘do I speak like one not in her perfect mind?’

’I cannot say.  Your words are meaningless to me.  You are not the Emily I knew.’

‘I am not,’ was her sad answer.  ’If you can bring yourself to believe that truth, you will spare yourself and me.’

‘What do you mean when you say that?’ he asked, his voice intensified in suppression.  ’If you are in full command of yourself, if your memory holds all the past, what can have made of you another being?  We dare not play with words at a time such as this.  Tell me at least one thing.  Do I know what it was that caused your illness?’

‘I don’t understand you.’

Her eyes examined him with fear.

’I mean, Emily—­was it solely due to that shock you received?  Or was there any previous distress?’