"Yes."
She sits stock-still for a moment, the very little colour that there ever was in it retreating out of her face.
"If I told you that, I should be telling you everything."
He is looking at her now; after all, he cannot keep his gaze pinned to the screen for ever, and, as he looks, he sees an emotion of so transcendently painful a nature set her little sad features working, that the one impulse that dominates him is to ease her suffering.
Poor little docile creature! She is going to tell him her secret, since he exacts it, though it is only with a rending asunder of soul and body that it can be revealed. He puts out his hand hurriedly, with a gesture as of prohibition.
"Then do not tell me."
She sinks back upon her haik with a movement of relief, and puts up her fine handkerchief to her pale lips. There is a perfect silence between them for awhile. At his elbow is a great un-English, unwintry nosegay of asphodel and iris. He passes his fingers absently over the freakish spikes.
"How did he take it? how did he take it at first?"
Her voice, though now tolerably distinct, is stamped with that character of awe which fills us all at approaching a great calamity.
"He would not believe it at first; and then he cried a great deal—oh, an immense deal!"—with an accent of astonishment, even at the recollection of his friend's tear-power—"and then—oh, then, he thought of putting an end to himself!"