Sara gathered up her dress, took his arm, and they passed out of the house.
Five minutes’ walking brought them to the door of her home. Falkenberg rang the bell, and as they waited, he said:
‘Miss Ford, may I come in? There is something I want to say to you.’
‘Oh yes! Come in and say what you like!’ she replied; and now that she had found speech again, the impulse to reveal her agony was uncontrollable–or, rather, the power of concealing it, of speaking of other things, had disappeared. ‘Say what you like,’ she repeated. ‘If you had come to say you had brought something to kill me with, I would thank you on my knees.’
‘Yes, I know you would, but I have not brought that,’ he answered, as the door swung open from within, and they entered.
Ellen started up on seeing them.
‘Oh, sir, I am glad you have brought Miss Ford home!’ she exclaimed.
‘Leave us, Ellen,’ said her mistress. ‘Herr Falkenberg wishes to speak with me.’
Ellen left the room. Sara looked at her guest. He, too, was pale, and his eyes full of a deep and serious purpose. His heart, too, was aching, with a pain almost as intolerable as that of her own.
He read the whole story; that which caused his pain was his own powerlessness to help her. He knew her better than she knew herself. He knew that it was not grief which gave the keenest sting to her present agony, but her outraged pride–the blow which had been dealt to her honour and her self-respect. It was upon that feeling that he calculated now, in what he was about to do. It was upon that, that he staked his whole hopes, as he threw. He had told her once that she might, some day, do something which conventional people would call outrageous. He was bent now upon persuading her to such a deed, and he trusted chiefly to that infuriated pride to help him.