He caught at my hands. He was breathing fast and thick.
“O, child, you don’t know!” he cried—“the peril that has dogged you—the love that has foreseen and provided—not for a moment the truth of how my heart bled to hurt you. Now—now! O, will you not come to me and hear?”
“No,” I whispered, in a hurry of emotion. “For pity’s sake leave me! I will come to you presently: I will, indeed.”
He rose to his feet at once, commanding himself. He was all changed—softened and transfigured. I felt swimming on the edge of a whirlpool—fighting giddily against some helpless, rapturous plunge to which I was being urged. I longed only for breathing time—some little space to be alone in.
He went and stood by the trap: “I will wait for you,” he said hoarsely; and so descended, closed it behind him, and was gone.
When, in an hour, I rejoined him, he was pacing the cellar like a caged wolf. He uttered a glad exclamation upon seeing me, and took my hand and led me to a stool. He was himself again, but with a new strange wistfulness in his gaiety.
“You will not mind the ‘sewer’ now?” said he. “And presently you will ask me everything, and I will tell you.”
He drew in our breakfast, by the same method as before; and I could at last enjoy my collops with a free conscience and appetite. Then, our meal over, he drew his stool beside me, and, without offering to smoke, started upon his relation.
XIX.
I AM MAID MARIAN
“But, first,” said he, kindling, “ask me where you are.”