He came out, and she flew to him. He felt her trembling as she touched him. In ten words she told him something of what had happened. Then he saw the bandage round her temple. His countenance fell. She knew that he turned white, and loved him for it. How few things had power to move him so! He wanted to lead her back into his library, where he was at work. But she resisted. "Let me go up to Annette," she said. "The little wound--oh! it is not much, I _know_ it is not much--ought to be properly seen to. We will do it between us in a moment. Then come--I will send her down for you. I want to tell you." But in her heart of hearts she was just a little afraid of telling him. What if an exaggerated version should get into the papers--if it should really do him harm--at this critical moment! She was always tormented by this dread, a dread born of long-past indiscretions and mistakes. He acquiesced, but first he insisted on half leading, half carrying her upstairs; and she permitted it, delighting in his strong arm. Half an hour later she sent for him. The maid found him pacing up and down the hall, waiting. When he entered her room she was lying on her sofa in a white wrapper of some silky stuff. The black lace had been drawn again round her head, and he saw nothing but a very pale face and her eager, timid eyes--timid for no one in the world but him. As he caught sight of her, she produced in him that exquisite mingled impression of grace, passion, self-yielding, which in all its infinite variations and repetitions made up for him the constant poem of her beauty. But though she knew it, she glanced at him anxiously as he approached her. It had been to her a kind of luxury of feeling, in the few moments that she had been waiting for him, to cherish a little fear of him--of his displeasure. "Now describe exactly what you have been doing," he said, sitting down by her with a troubled face and taking her hand, as soon as he had assured himself that the cut was slight and would leave no scar. She told her tale, and was thrilled to see that he frowned. She laid her hand on his shoulder. "It is the first public thing I have done without consulting you. I meant to have asked you yesterday, but we were both so busy. The meeting was got up rather hurriedly, and they pressed me to speak, after all the arrangements were made." "We are both of us too busy," he said, rather sadly; "we glance, and nod, and bustle by--" He did not finish the quotation, but she could. Her eyes scanned his face. "Do you think I ought to have avoided such a thing at such a time? Will it do harm?" His brow cleared. He considered the matter. "I think you may expect some of the newspapers to make a good deal of it," he said, smiling.