The words came from him unexpectedly, impulsively. Indirect as they were, she caught a hidden meaning. She put out her hand.
"You have something to tell me. Speak it. Say it quickly. Let me know it now. One more shock more or less cannot matter."
She had an intuition as to what it was. "I warn you, dear," he said, "that it will make a difference, a painful difference, between us."
"No, George"—it was the first time she had called him that—"nothing can make any difference with that."
He told her simply, bravely—she was herself so brave—what there was to tell, that two weeks ago her husband was alive, and that he was now on his way to England—perhaps in England itself. She took it with an unnatural quietness. She grew distressingly pale, but that was all. Her hand lay clinched tightly on the seat beside her. He reached out, took it, and pressed it, but she shook her head.
"Please do not sympathize with me," she said. "I cannot bear it. I am not adamant. You are very good—so good to me that no unhappiness can be all unhappiness. But let us look not one step farther into the future."
"What you wish I shall do always."
"Not what I wish, but what you and I ought to do is plain."
"I ask one thing only. I have said that I love you, said it as I shall never say it to another woman, as I never said it before. Say to me once here, before we know what the future will be, that you love me. Then I can bear all."
She turned and looked him full in the eyes, that infinite flame in her own which burns all passions into one. "I cannot, dear," she said.