When it grew too dark to see, Gemma rolled up her knitting and laid it in the basket. For some time she sat with folded hands, silently watching the Gadfly's motionless figure. The dim evening light, falling on his face, seemed to soften away its hard, mocking, self-assertive look, and to deepen the tragic lines about the mouth. By some fanciful association of ideas her memory went vividly back to the stone cross which her father had set up in memory of Arthur, and to its inscription:
“All thy waves and billows have gone over me.”
An hour passed in unbroken silence. At last she rose and went softly out of the room. Coming back with a lamp, she paused for a moment, thinking that the Gadfly was asleep. As the light fell on his face he turned round.
“I have made you a cup of coffee,” she said, setting down the lamp.
“Put it down a minute. Will you come here, please.”
He took both her hands in his.
“I have been thinking,” he said. “You are quite right; it is an ugly tangle I have got my life into. But remember, a man does not meet every day a woman whom he can—love; and I—I have been in deep waters. I am afraid——”
“Afraid——”
“Of the dark. Sometimes I DARE not be alone at night. I must have something living—something solid beside me. It is the outer darkness, where shall be—— No, no! It's not that; that's a sixpenny toy hell;—it's the INNER darkness. There's no weeping or gnashing of teeth there; only silence—silence——”
His eyes dilated. She was quite still, hardly breathing till he spoke again.