“Oh, nothing. Shall I resume the serious conversation I had with you last night? No, perhaps not; perhaps I had better not.”
“Oh, I cannot tell! How wretched it all is! Ah, I wish you were your own dear self again, and had kissed me when I came up! Why didn’t you ask me for one? why don’t you now?”
“Too free in manner by half,” he heard murmur the voice within him.
“It was that hateful conversation last night,” she went on. “Oh, those words! Last night was a black night for me.”
“Kiss!—I hate that word! Don’t talk of kissing, for God’s sake! I should think you might with advantage have shown tact enough to keep back that word ‘kiss,’ considering those you have accepted.”
She became very pale, and a rigid and desolate charactery took possession of her face. That face was so delicate and tender in appearance now, that one could fancy the pressure of a finger upon it would cause a livid spot.
Knight walked on, and Elfride with him, silent and unopposing. He opened a gate, and they entered a path across a stubble-field.
“Perhaps I intrude upon you?” she said as he closed the gate. “Shall I go away?”
“No. Listen to me, Elfride.” Knight’s voice was low and unequal. “I have been honest with you: will you be so with me? If any—strange—connection has existed between yourself and a predecessor of mine, tell it now. It is better that I know it now, even though the knowledge should part us, than that I should discover it in time to come. And suspicions have been awakened in me. I think I will not say how, because I despise the means. A discovery of any mystery of your past would embitter our lives.”
Knight waited with a slow manner of calmness. His eyes were sad and imperative. They went farther along the path.