He remained silent. I went on, quickly.
"I am going away because I feel inadequate and unable to cope with my present surroundings. I have had some experience of the same influences before—I know I have—"
"I also!" he interrupted.
"Well, you must realise this better than I," and I looked at him now with greater courage—"and if you have, you know they have led to trouble. I want you to help me."
"I? To help you?" he said. "How can I help you when you leave me?"
There was something infinitely sad in his voice,—and the old fear came over me like a chill—'lest I should lose what I had gained!'
"If I leave you," I said, tremblingly—"I do so because I am not worthy to be with you! Oh, can you not see this in me?" For as I spoke he took my hand in his and held it with a kindly clasp—"I am so self-willed, so proud, so unworthy! There are a thousand things I would say to you, but I dare not—not here, or now!"
"No one will approach us," he said, still holding my hand—"I am keeping the others, unconsciously to themselves, at a distance till you have finished speaking. Tell me some of these thousand things!"
I looked up at him and saw the deep lustre of his eyes filled with a great tenderness. He drew me a little closer to his side.
"Tell me," he persisted, softly—"Is there very much that we do not, if we are true to each other, know already?"