'There'—she said under her breath, 'I see her there!—lying dead between us!'
He was struck with horror, realising in what a grip this sane and simple nature must feel itself before it could break into such expression. What could he do or say?
He seated himself beside her, he took her hands by force.
'Lucy, I know what you mean. I won't pretend that I don't know. You think that I ought to have married my cousin—that if you had not been there, I should have married her. I might,—not yet, but after some time,—it is quite true that it might have happened. Would it have made Eleanor happy? You saw me at the villa—as I am. You know well, that even as a friend, I constantly disappointed her. There seemed to be a fate upon us which made me torment and wound her when I least intended it. I don't defend myself,—and Heaven knows I don't blame Eleanor! I have always believed that these things are mysterious, predestined—matters of temperament deeper than our will. I was deeply, sincerely attached to Eleanor—yet!—when you came—after those first few weeks—the falsity of the whole position flashed upon me. And there was the book. It seemed to me sometimes that the only way of extricating us all was to destroy the book, and—and—all that it implied—or might have been thought to imply,—' he added hurriedly. 'Oh! you needn't tell me that I was a blundering and selfish fool! We have all got into a horrible coil—and I can't pose before you if I would. But it isn't Eleanor that would hold you back from me, Lucy—it isn't Eleanor!—answer me!—you know that?'
He held her almost roughly, scanning her face in an agony that served him well.
Her lips moved piteously, in words that he could not hear. But her hands lay passive in his grasp; and he hastened on.
'Ever since that Nemi evening, Lucy, I have been a new creature. I will tell you no lies. I won't say that I never loved any woman before you. I will have no secrets from you—you shall know all, if you want to know. But I do say that every passion I ever knew in my first youth seems to me now a mere apprenticeship to loving you! You have become my life—my very heart. If anything is to be made of a fellow like me—it's you that'll give me a chance, Lucy. Oh! my dear—don't turn from me! It's Eleanor's voice speaks in mine—listen to us both!'
Her colour came and went. She swayed towards him, fascinated by his voice, conquered by the mere exhaustion of her long struggle, held in the grasp of that compulsion which Eleanor had laid upon her.
Manisty perceived her weakness; his eyes flamed; his arm closed round her.
'I had an instinct—a vision,' he said, almost in her ear, 'when I set out. The day dawned on me like a day of consecration. The sun was another sun—the earth reborn. I took up my pilgrimage again—looking for Lucy—as I have looked for her the last six weeks. And everything led me right—the breeze and the woods and the birds. They were all in league with me. They pitied me—they told me where Lucy was—'