"Rachel!—" He held out his hands to her. He could not find words, but his eyes spoke, and the agitation in every feature.
But she drew back.
"Don't—don't say anything—till—"
His look held her—the surprise in it—the tender appeal. She could not take hers from it. But the disturbance in him deepened. For in the face she raised to him there was no flood of maidenly joy. Suddenly—her eyes were those of a culprit examining her judge. A cry sprang to his lips.
"Wait!—wait!" she said piteously.
She fell back in her chair, covering her face, her breast heaving. He saw that she was trying to command herself, to steady her voice. One of those forebodings which are the children of our half-conscious observation shot through him. But he would not admit it.
He stooped over her and tried again to take her hand. But she drew it away, and sat up in her chair. She was very white, and there were tears in her eyes.
"I've got something to say to you," she said, with evident difficulty, "which—I'm afraid—will surprise you very much. Of course I ought to have told you—long ago. But I'm a coward, and—and—it was all so horrible. I am not what you suppose me. I'm—a married woman—at least I was. I divorced my husband—eighteen months ago. I'm quite free now. I thought if you really cared about me—I should of course have to tell you some time—but I've been letting it go on. It was very wrong of me—I know it was very wrong!"
And bowing her face on her knees, she burst into a passion of weeping, the weeping of a child who was yet a woman. The mingled immaturity and intensity of her nature found its expression in the very abandonment of her tears.
Ellesborough, too, had turned pale. He was astounded by what she said. His thoughts rushed back over the six weeks of their friendship—recalling his first impressions of something mysterious and unexplained.