Thereafter, for a second, blank silence. Neither dared to touch that deeper stage question that lay next their hearts. But when Keith Macleod, in many a word of timid suggestion, and in the jesting letter he sent her from Castle Dare, had ventured upon that dangerous ground, it was not to talk about the real furniture of a stage drawing-room. However, was not this an ordinary morning call? His manner—his speech—everything said so but the tightly-clasped hands, and perhaps too a certain intensity of look in the eyes, which seemed anxious and constrained.
"Papa, at least, is proud of our chrysanthemums," said Miss White, quickly getting away from the stage question. "He is in the garden now. Will you go out and see him? I am sorry Carry has gone to school."
She rose. He rose also, and he was about to lift his hat from the table, when he suddenly turned to her.
"A drowning man will cry out; how can you prevent his crying out?"
She was startled by the change in the sound of his voice, and still more by the almost haggard look of pain and entreaty in his eyes. He seized her hand; she would have withdrawn it, but she could not.
"You will listen. It is no harm to you. I must speak now, or I will die," said he, quite wildly; "and if you think I am mad, perhaps you are right, but people have pity for a madman. Do you know why I have come to London? It is to see you. I could bear it no longer—the fire that was burning and killing me. Oh, it is no use my saying that it is love for you—I do not know what it is—but only that I must tell you, and you cannot be angry with me—you can only pity me and go away. That is it—it is nothing to you—you can go away."
She burst into tears, and snatched her hand from him, and with both hands covered her face.
"Ah!" said he, "is it pain to you that I should tell you of this madness? But you will forgive me—and you will forget it—and it will not pain you to-morrow or any other day. Surely you are not to blame! Do you remember the days when we became friends? it seems a long time ago, but they were beautiful days, and you were very kind to me, and I was glad I had come to London to make so kind a friend. And it was no fault of yours that I went away with that sickness of the heart; and how could you know about the burning fire, and the feeling that if I did not see you I might as well be dead? And I will call you Gertrude for once only. Gertrude, sit down now—for a moment or two—and do not grieve any more over what is only a misfortune. I want to tell you. After I have spoken, I will go away, and there will be an end of the trouble."
She did sit down; her hands were clasped in piteous despair; he saw the tear drops on the long, beautiful lashes.
"And if the drowning man cries?" said he. "It is only a breath. The waves go over him, and the world is at peace. And oh! do you know that I have taken a strange fancy of late—But I will not trouble you with that; you may hear of it afterward; you will understand, and know you have no blame, and there is an end of trouble. It is quite strange what fancies get into one's head when one is—sick—heart-sick. Do you know what I thought this morning? Will you believe it? Will you let the drowning man cry out in his madness? Why, I said to myself, 'Up now, and have courage! Up now, and be brave, and win a bride as they used to do in the old stories.' And it was you—it was you—my madness thought of. 'You will tell her,' I said to myself, 'of all the love and the worship you have for her, and your thinking of her by day and by night; and she is a woman, and she will have pity. And then in her surprise—why—' But then you came into the room—it is only a little while ago—but it seems for ever and ever away now—and I have only pained you—"