"I tell you I have nothing to say to you," he was stern with the suffering of restraint.
She clung to him again.
"Why did you say that word 'Sweetheart' then? It was your own word. Oh! Denzil, you cannot be so frightfully cruel as to leave me in uncertainty—tell me the truth or I shall die!"
But he drew himself away from her and was silent; he could not make lying protestations of not understanding her, so there only remained one course for him to follow—he must go, and the brutality of such action made him fierce with pain.
She burst into passionate sobs and would have fallen to the ground. He raised her in his arms and laid her on the sofa near, and then fear seized him. What if this excitement and emotion should make her really ill—?
He knelt down beside her and stroked her hair. But she only sobbed the more.
"How hideously cruel are men. Why can't you tell me what I ask you? You dare not even pretend that you do not understand!"
He knew that his silence was an admission, he was torn with distress.
"Darling," he cried at last in torment, "for God's sake, let me go."
"Denzil—" and then her tears stopped suddenly, and the great drops glistened on her white cheeks. Weeping had not disfigured her—she looked but as a suffering child.