‘A gentleman asks to see the gracious lady.’
Wellfield saw the lighted room, the figure seated, writing, at a table. A moment afterwards he was alone with her; she had risen and stood looking at him with a strange, alarmed, alien expression, which sent a dismal chill to his very heart. She did not speak. She stood looking at him, and, as he could not help seeing, with an expression of aversion, of shrinking distaste. Her hand grasped the back of the chair from which she had risen, as if for support.
His voice first broke the silence:
‘Have I startled you, Sara? Forgive me, but I—’
She drew a long sigh, as if then first realising that she was not in some strange dream.
‘What–what brings you here?’ she asked in an almost inaudible voice.
‘I was in Frankfort,’ he said. ‘By accident I heard your name, and heard that you were here and alone. I tried to fight against it, but the impulse was too strong. I felt as if I should repent it all my life if I did not see you once more, while I could.’
‘You seem to forget that your visit must be very unwelcome to me; and that you had no right to come. Had I known of your intention I should have ordered my servant not to admit you. You must know that you are acting very wickedly.’
‘Wickedly!’ he repeated, scornfully and bitterly, ‘of course I am wicked. Have I not been wicked all along? Do you suppose I do not know it?’
‘I do not know, I am sure,’ she repeated, in the same low, almost frightened voice, and with the same look of aversion in her eyes, and a sort of alarmed wonder, which expression galled him beyond what words can express; ‘I do not know how wicked you have been, but I think you forget yourself strangely in thus forcing your presence upon me. Will you go away, please, and leave me? You can have nothing to say to me that I can listen to, and I have nothing at all–not one word–to say to you.’