He tried to speak but words failed him. And presently she spoke again, hurriedly, disjointedly.
"I am helpless. I can do nothing for Gillian. I could have left her money in my will, despite her pride she would have had to accept it. I can't even do that. At my death all I have, as you know, goes back into the estate. I have never saved anything--there never seemed any reason. And what I made with my work I gave away. There is only you--only one way--Barry, won't you--Barry!" She was crying undisguisedly, unconscious even of the unaccustomed tears. "You know what I mean--you must know," she whispered entreatingly, struggling with emotion.
He was standing rigid, to her strained fancy he seemed almost to have stopped breathing and there was in his attitude something that frightened her. It came to her suddenly that, after all, he was to all intents and purposes a stranger to her. Even the intimacy of these last months, living in close contiguity to him in his own house had not broken down the barrier that his sojourn in Japan had raised. She understood him no better than on the day of his arrival in Paris. He had been uniformly thoughtful and affectionate but had never reverted to the old Barry whom she had known so well. He had, as it were, retired within himself. He lived his life apart, with them but not of them, daily carrying through the arduous work he set himself with a dogged determination in which there was no pleasure. Yet, beyond a certain gravity, to the casual observer there was in him no great change. He entertained frequently and was a popular host, interesting and appearing interested. Only Miss Craven and Peters, more intimate, saw the effort that he made.
To Miss Craven it seemed sometimes as if he were deliberately living through a self-appointed period--she had found herself wondering what cataclysm would end it. She was conscious of the impression, which she tried vainly to dismiss as absurd, of living over an active volcano. What would be the result of the upheaval when it came? She had prayed earnestly for some counter-distraction that might become powerful enough to surmount the tragic memory with which he lived--a memory she was convinced and the tragedy was present in his face. She had cherished a hope, born in the early days of their return to Craven Towers and maintained in the face of seeming improbability of fulfilment, that had grown to be an ardent desire. In the realization of that hope she thought she saw his salvation. With the knowledge of her own precarious hold on life she clung even more closely to what had become the strongest wish she had ever known. She had never deluded herself into imagining the consummation of her wish imminent, she had frankly acknowledged to herself that his inscrutability was impenetrable, and now hope seemed almost extinguished. She realized it with a feeling of helplessness. And yet she had a curious impulse, an inner conviction that urged with a peremptoriness that over-rode subterfuge. She would speak plainly, be the consequences what they were. It was for the ultimate happiness of the two beings whom she loved best on earth--for that surely she might venture something. She had never been afraid of plain speaking, it would be strange if she let convention deter her now. Convention! it had wrecked many a life--so had interference, she thought with sudden racking indecision. What if by interference she hindered now, rather than helped?