It made her slowly rise, and they were once more fully face to face.
Her eyes held his own and she was paler than she had been. "If you love
me--now--don't ask me about father."
He waited again a moment. "I love you. It's because I love you that I'm
here. It's because I love you that I've brought you this." And he drew
from behind him the letter that had remained in his hand.
But her eyes only--though he held it out--met the offer. "Why you've
not broken the seal!"
"If I had broken the seal--exactly--I should know what's within. It's
for _you_ to break the seal that I bring it."
She looked--still not touching the thing--inordinately grave. "To break
the seal of something to you from _her?_"
"Ah precisely because it's from her. I'll abide by whatever you think
of it."
"I don't understand," said Kate. "What do you yourself think?" And then
as he didn't answer: "It seems to me _I_ think you know. You have your
instinct. You don't need to read. It's the proof."
Densher faced her words as if they had been an accusation, an
accusation for which he was prepared and which there was but one way to
face. "I have indeed my instinct. It came to me, while I worried it
out, last night. It came to me as an effect of the hour." He held up
his letter and seemed now to insist more than to confess. "This thing
had been timed."
"For Christmas Eve?"
"For Christmas Eve."
Kate had suddenly a strange smile. "The season of gifts!" After which,
as he said nothing, she went on: "And had been written, you mean, while
she could write, and kept to _be_ so timed?"
Only meeting her eyes while he thought, he again didn't reply. "What do
_you_ mean by the proof?"
"Why of the beauty with which you've been loved. But I won't," she
said, "break your seal."
"You positively decline?"
"Positively. Never." To which she added oddly: "I know without."