He made no reply to her appeal; he sat looking at her with a hostile scrutiny.
"Anyhow, you can't stay if you're going on behaving like this. It's intolerable."
"I came here on Godfrey's invitation. If Godfrey asks me to go——"
"If you appeal to Godfrey, you're not a friend of mine!" she cried hotly.
"Impossible to be a friend both of yours and of Godfrey's, is it?" he sneered.
Her face flushed; now she was very angry. "Go or stay—anyhow I've done with you!" She half-turned away, yet waited a moment still, hoping that his mood would soften.
He leant forward towards her in entreaty. "Don't do it, Bernadette, for God's sake! For your own sake, for the sake of all of us who love you!"
"Who loves me in this house?" she asked sharply and scornfully. "Am I so much to any of them? What am I to Godfrey, for instance? Does Godfrey love me?" She was glad to give utterance to her great excuse.
But his mind was not on excuses or palliation; they belonged to his old feelings about her, and it was the new feeling which governed him now. He stretched out his arm, caught one of her hands, and drew her towards him almost roughly.
"I love you, Bernadette, I love you body and soul, I worship you!"