"Of course, I cannot force your confidence," he answers, rather coldly.
"Why do you insist upon my having something to confide? What reason have you for supposing that I have?" she cries, with increased irritation.
"None whatever, but what you yourself have given me!"
"I!"
"Yes, you; not your words, but your face now and then. Don't think me impertinent. You know what unhappy reason I have had to be suspicious. But tell me" (trying his best to get a look round the corner into the averted, perturbed face of his companion)—"tell me whether there is not something between you and—and—that fellow that gave you the prayer-book?"
Esther's heart gives one great bounding throb; the thin muslin of her dress but poorly conceals its hard, quick pulsings.
One more chance for her! Fate generally gives us two or three chances before it allows us to consign ourselves irrecoverably to the dogs. One more choice between loyalty and disloyalty—a plain question, to be answered plainly, unequivocally—Yes or No; Robert or St. John. The man whose conversation bores her, whose proximity and whose gaze leave her colder than snow on an alp's high top an hour before sunrise, and with whom she has promised to live till death do them part; or the man, no whit better or handsomer, whose coming, felt, though unseen, makes her whole frame vibrate, as a harp's strings vibrate under the player's hands—beneath whose eyes hers sink down bashful, yet passionate—the man whom, after this week, she must see never again until death do them unite. Woman-like, she tries to avoid the alternative.
"What is that to you?" she retorts, abruptly, endeavouring to be playful, and succeeding only in being rude.
"Nothing whatever," he replies, flushing angrily; and then they walk on for some distance in silence.
"Are you angry?" asks Esther, presently, with a smile, half saucy, half frightened.