‘Has anything led you to think there was?’ she asked, urgently.

’Mrs. Baxendale tells me you—­Emily, why have I to pain you in this way?’

‘But tell me—­tell me What did she say?’

‘That on coming to yourself you did not know of your father’s death.’

‘It is true; I did not.  My illness began before.’

Wilfrid stood with his eyes on the ground.

‘Tell me, again,’ she said.  ‘What else did Mrs. Baxendale say?’

’Nothing.  Her surprise when she heard this from your mother was as great as mine when it was repeated to me.’

‘It is true,’ Emily repeated, more calmly, as if relieved.  ’I don’t try to conceal that there is a reason I may not speak of.  Will you not believe that it is strong enough to change my life?  If I did not tell you this, you might indeed refuse to listen to me, thinking I was not myself.  I cannot tell you more—­I cannot, I cannot!’

She pressed her palms upon her forehead; it throbbed with pain scarcely to be borne.  Wilfrid, after a moment of wretched hesitation, said gravely: 

’What you forbid me to ask, I may not even wish to know.  I have come to regard your will as the seal upon everything that is true and right.  Knowing this, seeing me here before you with my best hopes at stake, do you tell me that something has happened which makes the bond between us of no effect, which lays upon you a duty superior to that of the pledge you gave me?’

She met his gaze, and answered firmly, ‘I do.’

‘Some duty,’ he continued, with quivering voice, ’compared with which the sacredness of our love is nothing?’

She trembled from head to foot; then, as if clutching at a last help, said: 

‘I do not love you.’

And she waited with her head bowed.  Wilfrid, taking up his hat, went to her and offered his hand.  When hers was given: 

‘Raise your eyes and look at me, Emily.’

She did so.

’You are still in the shadow of a great grief, and it may well be that all other things seem trivial.  I wish to respect you to the uttermost, and I will try to conceive that there is a motive high enough to justify you.  But those last words must be repeated—­when time has come to your aid—­before I can regard them as final.’

He released her hand, and left her....

What was her first sensation, when the door had closed, then the gate without, and Wilfrid in very deed was gone?  Was it hopeless misery, failure, dread foresight of the life which she still must live?  Rather her mood was that of the martyr who has held firm to the last wrench of torture, who feels that agony is overcome and fear of self surpassed.  This possibility had there ever been in Emily, though associating with such variant instincts.  Circumstances had brought the occasion which weighed one part of her nature against the other, and with this result.