Her reproaches passed by me unheeded. They only heightened her color; they only added a new rapture to the luxury of looking at her. "If you loved me as faithfully as I love you," I said, "you would understand why I am here. No sacrifice is too great if it brings me into your presence again after two years of absence." She suddenly approached me, and fixed her eyes in eager scrutiny on my face. "There must be some mistake," she said. "You cannot possibly have received my letter, or you have not read it?" "I have received it, and I have read it." "And Van Brandt's letter--you have read that too?" "Yes." She sat down by the table, and, leaning her arms on it, covered her face with her hands. My answers seemed not only to have distressed, but to have perplexed her. "Are men all alike?" I heard her say. "I thought I might trust in _his_ sense of what was due to himself and of what was compassionate toward me." I closed the door and seated myself by her side. She removed her hands from her face when she felt me near her. She looked at me with a cold and steady surprise. "What are you going to do?" she asked. "I am going to try if I can recover my place in your estimation," I said. "I am going to ask your pity for a man whose whole heart is yours, whose whole life is bound up in you." She started to her feet, and looked round her incredulously, as if doubting whether she had rightly heard and rightly interpreted my last words. Before I could speak again, she suddenly faced me, and struck her open hand on the table with a passionate resolution which I now saw in her for the first time. "Stop!" she cried. "There must be an end to this. And an end there shall be. Do you know who that man is who has just left the house? Answer me, Mr. Germaine! I am speaking in earnest." There was no choice but to answer her. She was indeed in earnest--vehemently in earnest. "His letter tells me," I said, "that he is Mr. Van Brandt." She sat down again, and turned her face away from me. "Do you know how he came to write to you?" she asked. "Do you know what made him invite you to this house?" I thought of the suspicion that had crossed my mind when I read Van Brandt's letter. I made no reply.