He hung above her, an agony of feeling in the fine rigid face, of which the beautiful features and surfaces were already worn and blanched by the life of thought. What possessed him was not so much distrust of circumstance as doubt, hideous doubt, of himself, of this very passion beating within him. She saw nothing, meanwhile, but the self-depreciation which she knew so well in him, and against which her love in its rash ignorance and generosity cried out.
'You will not say you love me!' she cried, with hurrying breath. 'But I know—I know—you do.'
Then her courage sinking, ashamed, blushing, once more turning away from him—'At least, if you don't, I am very—very—unhappy.'
The soft words flew through his blood. For an instant he felt himself saved, like Faust,—saved by the surpassing moral beauty of one moment's impression. That she should need him, that his life should matter to hers! They were passing the garden wall of a great house. In the deepest shadow of it, he stooped suddenly and kissed her.
CHAPTER XXXVI
Langham parted with Rose at the corner of Martin Street. She would not let him take her any farther.
'I will say nothing,' she whispered to him, as he put her into a passing hansom, wrapping her cloak warmly round her, 'till I see you again. To-morrow?'
'To-morrow morning,' he said, waving his hand to her, and in another instant he was facing the north wind alone.
He walked on fast towards Beaumont Street, but by the time he reached his destination midnight had struck. He made his way into his room where the fire was still smouldering, and striking a light, sank into his large reading chair, beside which the volumes used in the afternoon lay littered on the floor.