The New Magdalen

"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!_"