'Dear—you remember that night when Alice attacked you? I came into the library, unknown to you both. You were still in the chair—you heard nothing. He stooped over you. I heard what he said. I saw his face. Lucy! there are terrible risks—not to you—but to him—in driving a temperament like his to despair. You know how he lives by feeling, by imagination—how much of the artist, of the poet, there is in him. If he is happy—if there is someone to understand, and strengthen him, he will do great things. If not he will waste his life. And that would be so bitter, bitter to see!'
Eleanor leant her face on Lucy's hands, and the girl felt her tears. She shook from head to foot, but she did not yield.
'I can't—I can't'—she said in a low, resolute voice. 'Don't ask me. I never can.'
'And you told him so?'
'I don't know what I told him—except that he mustn't trouble you—that we wanted him to go—to go directly.'
'And he—what did he say to you?'
'That doesn't matter in the least,' cried Lucy. 'I have given him no right to say what he does. Did I encourage him to spend these weeks in looking for us? Never!'
'He didn't want encouraging,' said Eleanor. 'He is in love—perhaps for the first time in his life. If you are to give him no hope—it will go hard with him.'
Lucy's face only darkened.
'How can you say such things to me?' she said passionately. 'How can you?'