"Perhaps of himself."
"Dear, he could not speak to her in that way!"
"A man in love—and in love with Cecily Doran—can do anything. The Spences are his close friends; they too have been working on Miriam."
"But why, why do you return to this? We have spoken of the worst they can do. To fear anything from their' persuasions is to distrust me."
"Cecily, I don't distrust you, but I can't live away from you. I might have gone straight from Naples, but I can't go now; every hour with you has helped to make it impossible. In talking to your aunt and to Miriam, I have been consciously false. Come further this way, into the shadow. Who is over there?"
"Some one we don't know."
Her voice had sunk to a whisper. Elgar led her by the hand into a further recess of the garden; the hand was almost crushed between his own as he continued:
"You must come with me, Cecily. We will go away together, and be married at once."
She panted rather than breathed.
"You must! I can't leave you! I had rather throw myself from these Capri rocks than go away with more than two years of solitude before me."