That strange outburst encouraged me. I risked letting her know that I had overheard her last words.
“If you trust me in your dreams, you only do me justice,” I said. “Do me justice now; give me your confidence. You are alone—you are in trouble—you want a friend’s help. I am waiting to help you.”
She hesitated. I tried to take her hand. The strange creature drew it away with a cry of alarm: her one great fear seemed to be the fear of letting me touch her.
“Give me time to think of it,” she said. “You don’t know what I have got to think of. Give me till to-morrow; and let me write. Are you staying in Edinburgh?”
I thought it wise to be satisfied—in appearance at least—with this concession. Taking out my card, I wrote on it in pencil the address of the hotel at which I was staying. She read the card by the moonlight when I put it into her hand.
“George!” she repeated to herself, stealing another look at me as the name passed her lips. “‘George Germaine.’ I never heard of ‘Germaine.’ But ‘George’ reminds me of old times.” She smiled sadly at some passing fancy or remembrance in which I was not permitted to share. “There is nothing very wonderful in your being called ‘George,’” she went on, after a while. “The name is common enough: one meets with it everywhere as a man’s name And yet—” Her eyes finished the sentence; her eyes said to me, “I am not so much afraid of you, now I know that you are called ‘George.’”
So she unconsciously led me to the brink of discovery!
If I had only asked her what associations she connected with my Christian name—if I had only persuaded her to speak in the briefest and most guarded terms of her past life—the barrier between us, which the change in our names and the lapse of ten years had raised, must have been broken down; the recognition must have followed. But I never even thought of it; and for this simple reason—I was in love with her. The purely selfish idea of winning my way to her favorable regard by taking instant advantage of the new interest that I had awakened in her was the one idea which occurred to my mind.
“Don’t wait to write to me,” I said. “Don’t put it off till to-morrow. Who knows what may happen before to-morrow? Surely I deserve some little return for the sympathy that I feel with you? I don’t ask for much. Make me happy by making me of some service to you before we part to-night.”
I took her hand, this time, before she was aware of me. The whole woman seemed to yield at my touch. Her hand lay unresistingly in mine; her charming figure came by soft gradations nearer and nearer to me; her head almost touched my shoulder. She murmured in faint accents, broken by sighs, “Don’t take advantage of me. I am so friendless; I am so completely in your power.” Before I could answer, before I could move, her hand closed on mine; her head sunk on my shoulder: she burst into tears.