“Oh, don’t take that tone,” she murmured. “What tone?” “As if--as if--you still imagined we could go back--” She saw his face fall. Had he ever before, she wondered, stumbled upon an obstacle in that smooth walk of his? It flashed over her that this was the danger besetting men who had a “way with women”--the day came when they might follow it too blindly. The reflection evidently occurred to him almost as soon as it did to her. He summoned another propitiatory smile, and drawing near, took her hand gently. “But I don’t want to go back.... I want to go forward, dearest.... Now that at last you’re free.” She seized on the word as if she had been waiting for her cue. “Free! Oh, that’s it--_free_! Can’t you see, can’t you understand, that I mean to stay free?” Again a shadow of distrust crossed his face, and the smile he had begun for her reassurance seemed to remain on his lips for his own. “But of course! Can you imagine that I want to put you in chains? I want you to be as free as you please--free to love me as much as you choose!” He was visibly pleased with the last phrase. She drew away her hand, but not unkindly. “I’m sorry--I _am_ sorry, Henry. But you don’t understand.” “What don’t I understand?” “That what you ask is quite impossible--ever. I can’t go on ... in the old way....” She saw his face working nervously. “In the old way? You mean--?” Before she could explain he hurried on with an increasing majesty of manner: “Don’t answer! I see--I understand. When you spoke of freedom just now I was misled for a moment--I frankly own I was--into thinking that, after your wretched marriage, you might prefer discreeter ties ... an apparent independence which would leave us both.... I say _apparent_, for on my side there has never been the least wish to conceal.... But if I was mistaken, if on the contrary what you wish is ... is to take advantage of your freedom to regularize our ... our attachment....” She said nothing, not because she had any desire to have him complete the phrase, but because she found nothing to say. To all that concerned their common past she was aware of offering a numbed soul. But her silence evidently perplexed him, and in his perplexity he began to lose his footing, and to flounder in a sea of words. “Lizzie! Do you hear me? If I was mistaken, I say--and I hope I’m not above owning that at times I _may_ be mistaken; if I was--why, by God, my dear, no woman ever heard me speak the words before; but here I am to have and to hold, as the Book says! Why, hadn’t you realized it? Lizzie, look up--! _I’m asking you to marry me._” Still, for a moment, she made no reply, but stood gazing about her as if she had the sudden sense of unseen presences between them. At length she gave a faint laugh. It visibly ruffled her visitor.