He did not see that the color fled from her face, nor that she gasped a little as though she had a difficulty in breathing. What he saw was that she slowly turned round on her chair and looked to him beseechingly. "Is--it--true?" she asked in a hushed tone. The dull anguish of it lent a fierceness to his purpose. "I have spoken to him. Would to God it were not!" It did not seem strange to her that he should say so, nor that he did not come and stroke her hair as he so often did when she fancied herself in trouble. She crossed her arms on the top of the chair, and laid her cheek on them. "I've always known that he must come back. Jack could never be dead," she murmured in a hopeless tone of voice; "he is overflowing with life, crude, arrogant life. Why did I believe them when they said he was dead?" "Perhaps you wished to believe it," said the musician. When he found the silence that followed no longer endurable, he moved a little nearer to her, where he could see the fierce movement of her shoulders and the curls on the back of her neck. "Shall we resume our conversation?" he said, and touched the Baedeker. "How can we? I must wait a little, see Jack, no, no, not see him, but--but write to him--if it is possible he never had my other letter? Why has he come back to torment me just when I was beginning to feel happy? And--oh, drop that book, can't you? Don't you understand that I cannot go abroad now?" "Why not?" "Because, oh, how dense you are! Even if I can get away from Jack, and I feel as if I never should be free again, but even supposing I can break his heart and leave him, how can I go away and be by myself interminably? You don't know me if you think that would do me any good." "I don't think so. I did not suggest your going alone. You don't know _me_ if--you think I could let you go." She raised herself slowly on to her elbows and covered her eyes with her hands. He was looking down at the scarlet cover of the Baedeker. "What do you mean?" "What I have said. You don't want to see Jack. I will take you away from him. Will you come?" She did not speak, and a shiver passed swiftly down her frame. He came nearer to her. "I believe you like him still," he said, with a curious smile. She raised her head, and clenched her fists, and laughed harshly. She, too, looked at the scarlet cover of the Baedeker. "I should hate him--if he were worth it. But I have never loved him." "Then answer my question. Will you come?" She moistened her lips and tried to speak clearly. "We were so happy as it was. Can't it go on?" "No, it cannot go on. If you were a man you would not ask that. Will you come?" She closed her eyes, and tried not to hear the singing in her ears, and thought he would come and touch her. But he did not move at all. "You are frightened, are you not?" he said. "Of you? No, I don't think I am frightened of you." He came so near then that she felt his warm breath on her neck.