"You don't know what you are saying!" she replied. "It is criminal even to think of such a thing—mad as I believe I am—mad as I shall be when I end in a padded room!"
Her voice was barely a whisper, but it cut like slate on slate, and her eyes stared straight ahead as she continued speaking rapidly, almost uncontrollably, and yet with a certain air of relief as though glad to give vent in words to the horror which pressed upon her brain.
"Although you pretend it is only sleep-walking," she went on, heedless of his efforts to interrupt her, "you know perfectly well there is something wrong with me. You know it, so did your father, so does Auntie, people here are whispering it. Yes! they are, they are," she reiterated, "and they are right. Something more than just being frightened by my ayah happened to me in India all those years ago, oh! you know it did, I'm under a spell or bewitched—sometimes I have a—a—" she struck her forehead with her open hand as she crouched back upon the bench like some animal at bay—"a—oh! my God—you see—I cannot even say what it is. Can't you tell me, Jan? Can't you help me? You—you say you love me—you say you have found a clue—for pity's sake follow it, follow it and save me—you—you——"
"Leonie, look at me!"
Something in his voice forced her to look at him, and her eyes shone like flat pieces of opalescent glass so contracted were the pupils, but they widened even as she looked into the steadfast grey eyes, and her mouth relaxed into the shadow of a smile.
Good heavens, why didn't he take her in his arms and smother her up against his heart, or put a bag over her head, or failing the bag, put his hand before her eyes?
What fools some men can be with the woman they love within their reach.
But instead he left her, hurt and humiliated and desolate, to sit half crouched by herself, whilst her eyes, against all striving, slowly veered round to the shrub.
He held her hand, it is true, whilst he talked, but what good is that to a frightened woman whose heart is crying for protection, and whose body is clamouring to be forced into submission?
"Dear," he said as Leonie stared at the poinsettia bush, "I am on the track at last, and in a very little time shall know exactly what happened to you all those years ago. There is only one link missing, and that I shall surely find, as I find everything when I set my mind to it. Then the whole thing will be cleared up, and this mysterious cloud lifted from you. Look at me, dear!" Leonie turned and looked at him blankly, and as he continued speaking, slowly, and as though against her will, turned her eyes back to the poinsettia bush. "I want you now in your distress. I want you in the storm as well as in the sunshine, dear; I love to see you smile, it would be heaven to make you smile. Marry me, beloved, now. Dear, won't you? Let me lift the cloud from my wife. Oh! Leonie, think of it—my wife!"