"Oh, no—oh, no."
"You may think not, but I know you did. I know, for I shared the struggle. There was once," he paused and considered, "there was that day when we were together in the green-house. You were cold and careful at first, but gradually the mask wore off and—and mine too slipped. We were happy, too happy. I think we both knew it. We did not look at each other as we came away, but I gave you a red vine leaf, and I saw that you did not put it with the others, even with those I had picked for you before."
"I have it now, Paul."
"After that, I began to suspect myself. I had hardly done so before, for there was only a vague sense of disappointment, and dissatisfaction with things as they were. Your sister was not—but no matter. I reasoned myself out of this over and over again. I argued that I was not well, was not fully recovered from my late attack of fever—in short, that I was hipped, and would certainly take a more cheerful view of things as my strength came back. I really had been rather bad, you know—and was low and easily depressed. But what might have opened my eyes to the truth was that all depression vanished, and all inertia ceased, directly you appeared,—and that was after I had ceased to hear your gay little laugh and merry voice. For though you soon grew grave as myself, my heart would jump when you came into the room, or when I came upon you in some distant corner, not knowing you were there."
"Paul, Paul, my heart jumped too."
He drew her closer—ah, she was very close now. "I scarcely ever spoke to you, do you remember? We avoided each other; and I cannot even now imagine how I came to know you so well,"—and so on, and so on....
Presently Leo had a question to ask. Where had he been during those three blank days when no communications from Boldero Abbey reached him? He had disposed of them in a fashion that satisfied others, but not her.
"No, you were too clear-sighted. I knew that," said he. "But what could I do? I could not tell the truth, which was that I never went near the place whose address I gave Maud! My one desire was to be out of range of her letters; for Leonore—I had—I cannot tell how, a sort of dreadful certainty that she would recall me. For those three days I wandered about,—I went down to a wild, little, sea place, and fought the demon within. Then because I simply felt weaker, I fancied soul as well as body brought into subjection. You all told me I looked bad when I returned—now you know why."
But though they thus skirted round and round one dread remembrance which was—how could it help being?—in both their minds, each shrank from approaching a subject avoided by the other; until at length Leonore, tremulous but resolute, realised that it was for her, not him, to speak.
"Paul, dear Paul, I don't want to leave anything unsaid. Paul, on that worst day of all," she hesitated, and his hand pressed the little hand within it. "Dear Paul," she whispered, "I did not know what I was doing; indeed, indeed I did not. Something in my head seemed to have snapped, and I felt so strange—I never felt like it before. And it was not only about you that I was so unutterably wretched, there was—there was—something else."