“Will you forgive me if I tell you all?” she exclaimed entreatingly.
“I can’t promise; so much depends upon what you have to tell.”
Elfride could not endure the silence which followed.
“Are you not going to love me?” she burst out. “Harry, Harry, love me, and speak as usual! Do; I beseech you, Harry!”
“Are you going to act fairly by me?” said Knight, with rising anger; “or are you not? What have I done to you that I should be put off like this? Be caught like a bird in a springe; everything intended to be hidden from me! Why is it, Elfride? That’s what I ask you.”
In their agitation they had left the path, and were wandering among the wet and obstructive stubble, without knowing or heeding it.
“What have I done?” she faltered.
“What? How can you ask what, when you know so well? You KNOW that I have designedly been kept in ignorance of something attaching to you, which, had I known of it, might have altered all my conduct; and yet you say, what?”
She drooped visibly, and made no answer.
“Not that I believe in malicious letter-writers and whisperers; not I. I don’t know whether I do or don’t: upon my soul, I can’t tell. I know this: a religion was building itself upon you in my heart. I looked into your eyes, and thought I saw there truth and innocence as pure and perfect as ever embodied by God in the flesh of woman. Perfect truth is too much to expect, but ordinary truth I WILL HAVE or nothing at all. Just say, then; is the matter you keep back of the gravest importance, or is it not?”