She had not thought how cruel it would sound, and the next instant she was full of terror at the effect of her own words. He broke loose from her,--_fell_ loose from her, one might better describe it, for it was his own weight rather than any effort which dragged him from her grasp. He staggered and caught hold of the iron railings to save himself, and there hung, staring at her with a face like a dead man. “My God!” he said,--not another word. “You must not give way like that,” she cried out, in a new fright. “Oh, how could I speak so! Aimée would have told you better. I did not mean to be so hard. You can save her if you will. She will not die, Grif, if you go to her. She only wants _you_. Grif,--Grif,--you look as if you could not understand what I am saying.” And she wrung her hands. And, indeed, it scarcely seemed as if he did understand, though at last he spoke. “Where is she?” he said. “Not here? You say I must 'go' to her.” “No, she is not here. She is at Lake Geneva. Miss MacDowlas took her there because she grew so weak, and she has grown weaker ever since, and three days ago they sent for Aimée to come to her, because--because they think she is going to die.” “And you say that _I_ have done this?” “I ought n't to have put it that way, it sounds so cruel, but--but she has never been like herself since the night you went away, and we have all known that it was her unhappiness that made her ill. She could not get over it, and though she tried to hide it, she was worn out. She loved you so.” He interrupted her. “If she is dying for me,” he said, hoarsely, “she must have loved me, and if she has loved me through all this,--God help us both!” “How could you go away and leave her all alone after all those years?” demanded Mollie. “We cannot understand it. No one knows but Aimée, and Dolly has told her that you were not to blame. Why did you go?” “_You_ do not know?” he said. “You should know, Mollie, of all others. _You_ were with her when she played that miserable coquette's trick,--that pitiful trick, so unlike herself,--you were with her that night when she let Gowan keep her away from me, when I waited for her coming hour after hour. I saw you with them when he was bidding her goodnight.” They had hidden their secret well all these months, but it was to be hidden no longer now. It flashed upon her like an electric shock. She remembered a hundred things,--a hundred little mysteries she had met and been puzzled by, in Aimee's manner; she remembered all she had heard, and all she had wondered at, and her heart seemed turned to stone. The flush of weeping died out of her face, her hands fell and hung down at her side, her tears were gone; nothing seemed left to her but blank horror.