"Would you marry for fear, then, if not for gratitude or love? If you were in the power of a man, would you marry that man to save yourself from all chance of betrayal? I have known women who would. Are you one of them?"
Again he passed his hands over her head and across and down her face. His voice sounded sweet and soft as honey: it was like a cradle-song to a tired child. Leam's eyes drooped heavily. A mist seemed stealing up before her through which everything was transformed—by which the sunshine became as a golden web wherein she was entangled, and the shadows as lines of the net that held her—where the songs of the birds melted into distant harmonies echoing the sleepy sweetness of that soft compelling voice, and where the earth was no longer solid, but a billowy cloud whereon she floated rather than stood. A strange sense of isolation possessed her. It was as if she were alone in the universe, with some all-powerful spirit who was questioning her of the secret things of life, and whose questions she must answer. Mr. Gryce was not the tenant of Lionnet, as the world knew him, but a mild yet awful god, in whose presence she stood revealed, and who was reading her soul, like her past, through and through. She was before him there as a criminal before a judge—discovered, powerless—and all attempt at concealment was at an end.
"Tell me what you know," said the soft and honeyed voice, ever sweeter, ever more soothing, more deadening to her senses.
Leam's whole form drooped, yielded, submitted. In another moment she would have made full confession, when suddenly the harsh cry of a frightened bird near at hand broke up the sleepy harmonies and scattered the compelling charm. Leam started, flung back her head, opened her eyes wide and fixed them full on her inquisitor. Then she stiffened herself as if for a personal resistance, passed her hands over her face as if she were brushing it from cobwebs, and said in a natural voice, offended, haughty, cold, "I did not hear what you said. I was nearly asleep."
"Wake, then," said Mr. Gryce, making a movement as if he too were brushing away cobwebs from her face. After a pause he took both her hands in his. "Child," he said, speaking naturally, without a lisp and with a broader provincial accent than usual—speaking, too, with ill-concealed emotion—"some day you will need a friend. When that day dawns come to me. Promise me this. I know your life and what lies in the past. Do not start—no, nor cover your face, my child. I am safe, and so are you. You must feel this, that I may be of use to you when you want me; for you will want me some day, and I shall be the only one who can save you."
"What do you know?" asked Leam, making one supreme effort over herself and confronting him.
"Everything," said Mr. Gryce solemnly.
"Then I am lost," she answered in a low voice.
"You are saved," he said with tenderness. "Do not be afraid of me: rather thank God that He has given you into my care. You have two friends now instead of one, and the latest the most powerful. Good-bye, my poor misguided and bewildered child. A greater than you or I once said, 'Her sins, which are many, are forgiven her, because she loved much.' Cannot you take that to yourself? If not now, nor yet when remorse is your chief thought, you will later. Till then, trust and hope."
He turned to leave her, tears in his eyes.