The agony of her sincerity was too apparent. Sir Hugh unclasped his arms. She went to her chair, sat down, leaned on the table, still covering her eyes. So she had leaned, years ago, with hidden face, in telling Bertram of the coming of the child. It seemed to her now that her shame was more complete, more overwhelming. And, though it overwhelmed her, her bliss was there; the golden and the black streams ran together. "Dearest,--should I have been less sudden?" Sir Hugh was beside her, leaning over her, reasoning, questioning, only just not caressing her. "It's not as if we didn't know each other, Amabel: we have been strangers, in a sense;--yet, through it all--all these years--haven't we felt near?--Ah darling, you can't deny it;--you can't deny you love me." His arm was pressing her. "Please--" she prayed again, and he moved his hand further away, beyond her crouching shoulder. "You are such a little nun that you can't bear to be loved?--Is that it? But you'll have to learn again. You are more than a nun: you are a beautiful woman: young; wonderfully young. It's astonishing how like a girl you are."--Sir Hugh seemed to muse over a fact that allured. "And however like a nun you've lived--you can't deny that you love me." "You haven't loved me," Amabel at last could say. He paused, but only for a moment. "Perhaps not: but," his voice had now the delicate aptness that she remembered, "how could I believe that there was a chance for me? How could I think you could ever come to care, like this, when you had left me--you know--Amabel." She was silent, her mind whirling. And his nearness, as he leaned over her, was less ecstasy than terror. It was as if she only knew her love, her sacred love again, when he was not near. "It's quite of late that I've begun to wonder," said Sir Hugh. "Stupid ass of course, not to have seen the jewel I held in my hand. But you've only showed me the nun, you darling. I knew you cared, but I never knew how much.--I ought to have had more self-conceit, oughtn't I?" "I have cared. You have been all that is beautiful.--I have cared more than for anything.--But--oh, it could not have been this.--This would have killed me with shame," said Amabel. "With shame? Why, you strange angel?" "Can you ask?" she said in a trembling voice. His hand caressed her hair, slipped around her neck. "You nun; you saint.--Does that girlish peccadillo still haunt you?" "Don't--oh don't--call it that--call me that!--" "Call you a saint? But what else are you?--a beautiful saint. What other woman could have lived the life you've lived? It's wonderful." "Don't. I cannot bear it." "Can't bear to be called a saint? Ah, but, you see, that's just why you are one." She could not speak. She could not even say the only answering word: a sinner. Her hands were like leaden weights upon her brows. In the darkness she heard her heart beating heavily, and tried and tried to catch some fragment of meaning from her whirling thoughts.