"I have felt that about you too."
Maurice had taken out his watch. Without speaking he timed the fluttering pulsation of her life, then, dropping her hand and returning the watch to his pocket:
"Your too eager thoughts were of me?" he asked.
"Yes, but yours were not of me."
"Not always," he said, with an honesty that pleased her.
And again Lily saw above his face the shadowy crown of thorns. She was really unwell and ready to be unstrung. Perhaps this made her say hastily, as she shifted lower on her cushions:
"I'm partly ill to-day because you let me see how horribly you are suffering."
"Yes," Maurice said heavily. "I let you see it. Why's that?"
There was nothing like a shock to either of them in the directness of their words. They seemed spoken rightly at the inevitable time. No thought of question, of denial, was entertained by them. Maurice sat there by her and dropped his mask utterly.
"Miss Alston, I am a haunted man," he said.