'Distrust you?' She could not think that she understood him.
'Do you fear to come to London with me?'
'Wilfrid?'
Her bosom heaved with passionate resentment of his thought.
'Is that how you understand my motives?' she asked, with tremulous, subdued earnestness, fixing upon him a gaze which he could not meet.
'Yes,' he answered, below his breath, 'in a moment when love of you has made me mad.'
He turned away, leaning with one hand upon the trunk. In the silence which followed he appeared to be examining the shapeless ruins, which, from this point of view, stood out boldly against the sky.
'When was this castle destroyed?' he asked presently, in a steady voice.
He received no answer, and turned his eyes to her again. Emily's face was strung into a hard intensity. He laid his hand once more upon hers, and spoke with self-control.
'You do not know the strength of a man's love. In that moment it touched the borders of hate. I know that your mind is incapable of such a suspicion; try to think what it meant to be possessed for an instant by such frenzy.'