He had never been so close to me before. I think I was outwardly quite unmoved. But I could not see him, even at a distance, without inward commotion. When he sat down so near me, a great many pulses I had not known before were in my body began to beat and hammer. I felt my heart grow many sizes too big, and my breast-bone ache under the pressure. I said to myself the one essential was that he should not suspect--for him to guess the state he had thrown me into would be the supreme disaster. He might despise me. Almost certainly he would think I was hysterical. I knew the contempt he felt for hysterical women. Never, never should he think me one! I would rather die, sitting rigidly in my corner without a sign, than let him think I had any taint of the hysterical in me! Above all, for my Great Secret's sake, I must show self-command. Upon that I saw, in a flash, this was the ideal moment for telling him about The Plan. He asked how had my mother slept. I don't know what I said. But I remember that he spoke very gently of her. And he said I must husband my strength. I stayed too much indoors, he said. Hereafter I was to take an hour's brisk walk every day of my life. I told him I couldn't always do that in these days. "You must," he said. I thought of my books, and shook my head. "Won't you do it if I ask you to?" he said. He leaned a little towards me. I dared not look up. "I understand your not wanting to leave your mother," he said. "But couldn't your sister----" Then, before I could answer, "No," he said, smiling a little, "I suppose she couldn't." There was something in his tone that did not please me. "You mean Betty is too young?" No; he didn't mean that, he said. What _did_ he mean? "Well, she has other preoccupations, hasn't she?" he said lightly. "You mean Hermione? Hermione and all the family are in London." No; he didn't mean Hermione. I was in too much inner turmoil to disentangle his meaning then. For he went on quickly to say: "Suppose I sit with your mother for that hour, while you go out and get some exercise?" I was to lose an hour of him--tramping about alone! The very thought gave me an immense self-pity. My eyes grew moist.... "Come, come!" I said to myself, "keep a tight rein!" Just as I was getting myself under control again, he undid it all by laying his hand over mine. "Let me help you," he said. "Oh, w-will you?" I stammered; while to myself I said: "He is being kind; don't think it is more--don't _dare_ think it is more!" Though I couldn't help thinking it _was_ more, I turned to the thought of my Great Scheme as a kind of refuge from a feeling too overwhelming to be faced. And yet, I don't know, it may have been partly some survival in me of the coquetry I thought I hated; that, too, may have helped to make me catch nervously at a change of subject. So I interrupted with something about: "If you really do want to help me----"