“I don’t know!”
“Yes you do! But …” He gloomily considered her thin and fragile form a moment longer as she crouched before him in her night-clothes. “Well, I thought it might end like this,” he said presently. “I owe you nothing, after these signs; but I’ll take you in at your word, and forgive you.”
He put his arm round her to lift her up. Sue started back.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, speaking for the first time sternly. “You shrink from me again?—just as formerly!”
“No, Richard—I—I—was not thinking—”
“You wish to come in here?”
“Yes.”
“You still bear in mind what it means?”
“Yes. It is my duty!”
Placing the candlestick on the chest of drawers he led her through the doorway, and lifting her bodily, kissed her. A quick look of aversion passed over her face, but clenching her teeth she uttered no cry.