"I can show you the report."
There was silence. Ellesborough turned round, put his hands on the
mantelpiece, and buried his face on them. Presently she approached him,
looked at him with a quivering lip, and said in broken sentences,--
"It has all come so suddenly--hasn't it? I had been in such good
spirits to-day, not thinking of those horrible things at all. I don't
know what I meant to do, if you did ask me--for of course I knew you
_might_. I suppose I intended to put off telling you--so as to be sure
first--_certain_--that you loved me. And then--somehow--when you looked
down on me like that, I felt--that _I_ cared--much more than I had
thought I cared--too much to let you speak--before you knew--before I'd
told you. It's always been my way--to--put off disagreeable things. And
so I thought I could put this off. But every night I have been awake
thinking--'if only he knew!'--and I was wretched--for a while--because
you didn't know. But then it went away again--and I forgot it. One does
forget things--everything--when one is hard at work. But I'm awfully
sorry. And now--I think--we'd better say good-bye."
Her voice faltered against her will. He raised himself quickly.
"No--no," he said passionately, "we won't say good-bye. But you must let
me think--for you, as well as for myself."
"It would be better to say good-bye," she persisted. "I'm afraid--you
expect in me--what I haven't got. I see that now. Because I'm keen about
this work, and I can run this farm, you think--perhaps--I'm a strong
character. But I'm not. I've no judgment--not in moral things. I give
in--I'm weak--and then--I could kill myself!"
She had grown very white again--and her eyes were strangely fixed on him.
The words seemed to him incoherent, out of touch somehow even with their
tragic conversation. But his first passing bewilderment was lost in pity
and passion. He stopped, took her hand, and kissed it. He came nearer.
But again she drew back.
"There's Janet!" she said, "we can't talk any more."
For she had caught sight of Janet in the farm-yard, leading her bicycle.
"Can you meet me to-morrow evening--on the Common?" he said. "I could be
there about six."
She frowned a little.
"Is it worth while?"
"I beg you!" he said huskily.
"Very well--I'll come. We shall be just friends, please."
"But, of course, I'll tell you more--if you wish."
Janet's voice and step were heard in the passage. How Ellesborough got
through the next ten minutes he never remembered. When they were over, he
found himself rushing through the cool and silence of the autumn night,
thankful for this sheltering nature in which to hide his trouble, his
deep, deep distress.