“Why, Gladys, why? To you I am not cruel.”
“Too kind, alas, too kind!”
“And yet you fear me?”
“God help us. Yes.”
“What is your fear?”
“No, no, I will not tell it!”
Some inward throe of shame or anguish turned the pale face paler, knotted the brow, and locked the lips, as if both soul and body revolted from the thought thus ruthlessly dragged to light. Instinct, the first, last, strongest impulse of human nature, struggled blindly to save the woman from betraying the dread which haunted her heart like a spectre, and burned her lips in the utterance of its name. But Helwyze was pitiless, his will indomitable; his eye held, his hand controlled, his voice commanded; and the answer came, so reluctantly, so inaudibly, that he seemed to divine, not hear it.
“What fear?”
“Your love.”
“You see, you know it, then?”