"Stay here," she said to him, in suddenly altered tones.
"Pardon me," he rejoined, "I don't understand you."
"You will understand me directly. Give me a little time."
He still lingered near the door, with his eyes fixed inquiringly on
her. A man of a lower nature than his, or a man believing in Mercy less
devotedly than he believed, would now have felt his first suspicion of
her. Julian was as far as ever from suspecting her, even yet. "Do you
wish to be alone?" he asked, considerately. "Shall I leave you for a
while and return again?"
She looked up with a start of terror. "Leave me?" she repeated, and
suddenly checked herself on the point of saying more. Nearly half the
length of the room divided them from each other. The words which she
was longing to say were words that would never pass her lips unless she
could see some encouragement in his face. "No!" she cried out to him, on
a sudden, in her sore need, "don't leave me! Come back to me!"
He obeyed her in silence. In silence, on her side, she pointed to the
chair near her. He took it. She looked at him, and checked herself
again; resolute to make her terrible confession, yet still hesitating
how to begin. Her woman's instinct whispered to her, "Find courage in
his touch!" She said to him, simply and artlessly said to him, "Give
me encouragement. Give me strength. Let me take your hand." He neither
answered nor moved. His mind seemed to have become suddenly preoccupied;
his eyes rested on her vacantly. He was on the brink of discovering her
secret; in another instant he would have found his way to the truth. In
that instant, innocently as his sister might have taken it, she took
his hand. The soft clasp of her fingers, clinging round his, roused
his senses, fired his passion for her, swept out of his mind the pure
aspirations which had filled it but the moment before, paralyzed his
perception when it was just penetrating the mystery of her disturbed
manner and her strange words. All the man in him trembled under the
rapture of her touch. But the thought of Horace was still present to
him: his hand lay passive in hers; his eyes looked uneasily away from
her.
She innocently strengthened her clasp of his hand. She innocently said
to him, "Don't look away from me. Your eyes give me courage."
His hand returned the pressure of hers. He tasted to the full the
delicious joy of looking at her. She had broken down his last reserves
of self-control. The thought of Horace, the sense of honor, became
obscured in him. In a moment more he might have said the words which he
would have deplored for the rest of his life, if she had not stopped him
by speaking first. "I have more to say to you," she resumed abruptly,
feeling the animating resolution to lay her heart bare before him at
last; "more, far more, than I have said yet. Generous, merciful friend,
let me say it _here!_"