"You must excuse me," she murmured; "but the letter was one which I absolutely desired no one to see." But he did not seem to hear her apology. He stood with his gaze fixed on the fire, and his hand clenched against his heart, as if something in the fate of that wretched sheet of paper reminded him of the love and hope that were shrivelling up before his eyes. She saw his look and drooped her head with a sudden low moan of mingled shame and suffering. "Am I killing _you_?" she faintly cried. "Are my strange, wild ways driving _you_ to despair? I had not thought of that. I am so selfish, I had not thought of that!" This evidence of feeling, the first she had ever shown him, moved Mr. Orcutt deeply. Advancing toward her, with sudden passion, he took her by the hand. "Killing me?" he repeated. "Yes, you are killing me. Don't you see how fast I am growing old? Don't you see how the dust lies thick upon the books that used to be my solace and delight? I do not understand you, Imogene. I love you and I do not understand your grief, or what it is that is affecting you in this terrible way. Tell me. Let me know the nature of the forces with which I have to contend, and I can bear all the rest." This appeal, forced as it was from lips unused to prayer, seemed to strike her, absorbed though she was in her own suffering. Looking at him with real concern, she tried to speak, but the words faltered on her tongue. They came at last, however, and he heard her say: "I wish I could weep, if only to show you I am not utterly devoid of womanly sympathy for an anguish I cannot cure. But the fountain of my tears is dried at its source. I do not think I can ever weep again. I am condemned to tread a path of misery and despair, and must traverse it to the end without weakness and without help. Do not ask me why, for I can never tell you. And do not detain me now, or try to make me talk, for I must go where I can be alone and silent." She was slipping away, but he caught her by the wrist and drew her back. His pain and perplexity had reached their climax. "You must speak," he cried. "I have paltered long enough with this matter. You must tell me what it is that is destroying your happiness and mine." But her eyes, turning toward him, seemed to echo that _must_ in a look of disdain eloquent enough to scorn all help from words, and in the indomitable determination of her whole aspect he saw that he might slay her, but that he could never make her speak. Loosing her with a gesture of despair, he turned away. When he glanced back again she was gone. The result of this interview was naturally an increased doubt and anxiety on his part. He could not attend to his duties with any degree of precision, he was so haunted by uneasy surmises as to what might have been the contents of the letter which he had thus seen her destroy before his eyes. As for her words, they were like her conduct, an insolvable mystery, for which he had no key.