Her eyes were upon him. In a whisper, 'You're afraid to tell me,' she said.
He went over to the window, seeming to wait there for something that did not come. He turned round at last.
'I still hoped, at that time, to win my father over. She blamed me because'—again he faced the window and looked blindly out—'if the child had lived it wouldn't have been possible to get my father to—to overlook it.'
'You—wanted—it overlooked?' the girl said faintly. 'I don't underst——'
He came back to her on a wave of passion. 'Of course you don't understand. If you did you wouldn't be the beautiful, tender, innocent child you are.' He took her hand, and tried to draw her to him.
She withdrew her hand, and shrank from him with a movement, slight as it was, so tragically eloquent, that fear for the first time caught hold of him.
'I am glad you didn't mean to desert her, Geoffrey. It wasn't your fault, after all—only some misunderstanding that can be cleared up.'
'Cleared up?'
'Yes, cleared up.'
'You aren't thinking that this miserable old affair I'd as good as forgotten——'