Duplessis bit his cheek. “That was your gentle reproof, then, for my blunder?”
“Yours was only a blunder because I saw what it really was. It had never entered your head that I could be other than honoured to meet you anywhere. You presumed that I should run there.”
“You ran very near to it, my friend,” he said. “That is, you had yourself driven.”
She bowed her head. “I admit it. I was a fool—but I am not a fool now.”
“No,” said Duplessis, “you are not. You are, as a matter of truth, extraordinarily beautiful just now, and I am more ridiculously in love with you than ever. But—” She rose from her knees and stood before him.
“Let me finish what I have to say to you, please,” she said. “That was not my only reason for deceiving you. I wished you to wait for me in vain, because I wished you to understand that I could not see you any more. I wished you to believe that our intercourse must be over. I chose the harshest means I could think of. I might have written it, no doubt, but you would have answered the letter, and I am no match for you in writing. I might have seen you and told you—but I couldn’t do that.”
“Molly,” said Duplessis, folding his arms, “why couldn’t you see me?”
She looked down. “Because I couldn’t.”
“It was because you dared not,” said Duplessis.
She did not answer; she was trembling a little now, and he saw it. But presently she looked him straight in the face.