Her face expressed an agony of shame; she could not raise her eyes, could not speak.  She gave him her hand mechanically, and walked on with her looks averted.  Her distress was so unconcealed that it pained him acutely.  He could not find words till they had walked a distance of twenty or thirty yards.  Then he said: 

’I came purposely to-day, in the hope that you might by chance be here.  Do I annoy you?’

She half turned her face to him, but the effort to speak was vain.

A still longer silence followed.  Wilfrid knew at length what he had done.  That utterance of his had but one meaning, Emily’s mute reply admitted of but one interpretation.  His eyes dazzled; his heart beat violently.  A gulf sank before him, and there was no longer choice but to plunge into it.  He looked at his companion, and—­farewell the solid ground.

‘Emily, is it your wish that I should leave you?’

She faced him, moved her lips, motioned ‘no’ with her head.  She was like one who is led to death.

’Then I will not leave you.  Let us walk gently on; you shall speak to me when you feel able.’

He cared for no obstacle now.  She was come back to him from the dead, and to him it was enough of life to hold her.  Let the world go; let all speak of him as they would; this pale, weary-eyed woman should henceforth represent existence to him.  He would know no law but the bidding of his sovereign love.

She spoke.

‘Have I fallen in your eyes?’

‘You have always been to me the highest, and will be whilst I live.’

They had passed into the shadow of the trees; he took her hand and held it.  The touch seemed to strengthen her, for she looked at him again and spoke firmly.

’Neither was my coming without thought of you.  I had no hope that you would be here, no least hope, but I came because it was here I had seen you.’

‘Since Wednesday,’ Wilfrid returned, ’I have read your letters many times.  Could you still speak to me as you did then?’

‘If you could believe me.’

‘You said once that you did not love me.’

‘It was untrue.’

‘May you tell me now what it was that came between us?’

She fixed upon him a gaze of sad entreaty, and said, under her breath, ‘Not now.’

’Then I will never ask.  Let it be what it might; your simple word that you loved me is all I need.’

‘I will tell you,’ Emily replied, ’but I cannot now.  It seemed to me at the time that that secret would have to die with me; I thought so till I met you here.  Then I knew that, if you still loved me and had been faithful to me so long, I could say nothing to myself which I might not speak to you.  My love for you has conquered every other love and everything that I believed my duty.’

‘Is it so, Emily?’ he asked, with deepest tenderness.

’When I tell you all, you will perhaps feel that I have proved my own weakness.  I will conceal from you nothing I have ever thought; you will see that I tried to do what my purest instincts urged, and that I have been unable to per. severe to the end.  Wilfrid—­’