She seated herself on the sofa, and he took his place beside her. There was a silence of a minute or two, before she suddenly started up, and, after walking up and down the room nervously, stopped at the mantelpiece, leaning her head against the high slab, and looking into the smouldering fire in the grate.
He watched her, but did not attempt to express the pity that filled his heart.
“What am I to tell you—what am I to tell you?” she cried at last, resuming her pacing of the floor.
He made no reply, but sat there following her movements with his eyes. She went beside him, and stood, with nervously clasped hands, looking with vacant eyes at the group of wax candles that burned in one of the sconces. Once again she turned away with a little cry, but then with a great effort she controlled herself, and her voice was almost tranquil when she spoke, seating herself.
“You were with me at the Pantheon, and saw me when I caught sight of that man,” she said. “You alone were observant. Did you also see him call me to his side in the green room at the playhouse?”
“I saw you in the act of speaking to him there—he calls himself Jackson—Captain Jackson,” said Goldsmith.
“You saved me from him once!” she cried. “You saved me from becoming his—body and soul.”
“No,” he said; “I have not yet saved you, but God is good; He may enable me to do so.”
“I tell you if it had not been for you—for the book which you wrote, I should be to-day a miserable castaway.”
He looked puzzled.