"When did this thing happen—the thing that makes you so unhappy?"
"Last Thursday. He had dined with us. I had been feeling ill all day. Since the summer I have been frightened two or three times—it is my head I think—but I have put off getting any advice. He could not have asked for an explanation at a worse time; but I had no right to withhold it. I tried to explain, even offered him money, and then——"
"Yes, and then?"
"Oh, Father Vernon, he grew so big! He seemed to tower. Everything else was small. Yes—let me tell the truth—religion, priests, even God—we all seemed to be a little band of intriguers trying to pull him down. He told me to burn his book, turned on his heel. I knew he wouldn't come back, and so—and so—I'm only a woman: I babbled something or other that was in my heart, and he took me—in his—arms."
She leaned forward, put her elbows on her knees, and looked into the fire. The action was deliberate. One never would have guessed what a storm was rending her breast.
"He kissed me only once," she went on. "He was very gentle. Then we sat down, and I found out that, all the time while I had been condescending, advising, putting him at his ease, I was nothing to him but just a little, lonely, spoilt girl."
"Have you seen him since?"
"No."
"Nor written?"
"No."