“Do you? No, don’t suffer. I—can’t help myself.”
“You are sorry for me, then?”
“Oh, yes.”
“But how came I, then, to have the opposite impression so strongly? I think—I can’t help thinking—that it was your fault, dear. You made me hope, perhaps without meaning me to, that—that life was to be happy for me. When I entered that door just now no man in New York had a lighter step than I, or a more careless heart. I shall go out of it—different, dear. You should not have allowed me to think—what I did; and you should not have told me the truth so—quite so—suddenly.”
“Sit down. You are not fair to me. I did not know you cared—”
“You—you did not know that I cared? Come, that’s not true, girl!”
“Not so much, I mean—not quite so much. I thought that you were flirting with me, as I—perhaps—was flirting with you.”
“Who is that I hear speaking? Is it Winifred? The very sound of her voice seems different. Am I dreaming? She flirting with me? I don’t realize her—it is a different girl! Oh! this thing comes to me like a falling steeple. It had no right to happen!”
“You should sit down, or you should go; better go—better, better go,” and Winifred clutched wildly at her throat. “Let us part now, and let us never meet!”
“If you like, if you wish it,” said Carshaw, still humbly, for he was quite dazed. “It seems sudden. I am not sure if it is a dream or not. It isn’t a happy one, if it is. But have we no business to discuss before you send me away in this fashion? Do you mean to throw off my help as well as myself?”