“Indeed I am listening,” she faltered.
“Give yourself a chance,” he begged. “Leave England this week—to-morrow, if you can. Go right away from here. You have friends in Rome. I heard your cousin ask you not long ago to pay her a visit at her villa on the Adriatic. Start to-morrow, and I promise that you will come back a sane woman. You will be able to laugh at Saton, to see through the fellow, and to realise what a tissue of shams he’s built of. You will be able to feel a reasonable interest in anything Naudheim has to say. Just now you are unnerved, these men have frightened you. Believe me that your greatest and most effectual safety lies in flight.”
A sudden hope lit up her face. She turned towards him eagerly. She was going to consent—he felt it, he was almost conscious of the words trembling upon her lips. Already his own personal regrets at her absence were beginning to cloud his joy. Then her whole expression changed. Something of the look settled upon her features which he had seen when first she had stopped the carriage. Her lips were parted, her eyes distended. She looked nervously around as though she were afraid that some one was following them.
“I cannot do that, Henry,” she said. “In a way it would be a relief, but it is impossible. I cannot, indeed.”
She led the way to the carriage. They walked in absolute silence for nearly a minute. He felt that he had lost a great part of his influence over her and he was bitter.
“Tell me why you almost consented,” he asked, abruptly, “and then changed your mind? In your heart you must know that it is for your good.”
“I only know,” she answered, slowly, “that at first I longed to say yes, and now, when I come to think of it, I see that it is impossible.”
“You are going to allow yourself, then, to be the prey of these morbid fancies? You are going to treat this creature as a human being of your own order? You are going to let him work upon your imagination?”
“It is no use,” she said wearily. “For the present, I cannot talk any more about it. I do not understand myself at all.”
They stood for a moment by the carriage.