"What do you want of me?" he said in a shamed voice.
"I have said go to London—away, anywhere. I cannot have you here, I am not schooled enough—yet." She paused a second, and he looked away from her, supporting his sick brow in his hand—"These women have sharp eyes, too," she added faintly.
Now he glanced at her. "These women!" So that was how she spoke of his mother and his cousin—she, a stranger in the house, Mr. Hilton's daughter; Aspasia should have loved my lady and Susannah.
"You may write to me," she went on quickly, "under cover of my father's house."
She had thought of that, then. It brought him to his feet.
"But you are the Countess of Lyndwood," he said.
Her slight frame trembled painfully, her large shadowed eyes widened.
"Does it make any difference to what you and I feel for each other?" she asked faintly.
"It makes a difference in the expression of that feeling," he answered fearfully. "It means that you are no longer Aspasia."
She held out a shaking hand towards him.