"Yes, I see you are frightened; you wish to go—escape, go back to the house and shut yourself up out of my reach, as you usually do. But this time I'm merciless, I feel that it's my last chance; you cannot go (you needn't try to pass me) until you have told me why it is that you wish not to see me again, never again, in spite of the safety, the absolute unapproachableness of your position."
She sat there, her eyes on his hard, insistent face.
"Why do you make me more wretched than I am?" she asked.
"Because I can't help it! There is a reason, then?"
"Yes." She had bent her head down again.
"I thought so. And I am prepared to hear it," he went on.
His voice had altered so as he brought this out that she looked up. "What is it you expect to hear?" she asked in a whisper.
"It's a new idea, I admit—something that has just come to me; but it explains everything—your whole course, conduct, which have been such a mystery to me. You love Lanse, you have always loved him; that is the solution! In spite of the insult of his long neglect of you, his second desertion, you are glad to go back to him; there have been such cases of miserable infatuation among women, yours is one of them. But you do not wish me to see the process of your winning him over, or trying to; so I am to be sent away."
She got up. "And if I should say yes to this, acknowledge it, that would be the end? You would wish to see me no more?"
"Don't flatter yourself. Nothing of the kind. Recollect, if you please, that I love you; with me, unfortunately, it's for life. You may be weak enough—depraved enough, I might almost call it—to adore Lanse,—do you suppose that makes any difference in my adoring you? Do you think it's a matter of choice with me, my caring for you as I do? That I enjoy being mastered in this way by a feeling I can't overcome?"