But you're overtired to-night, Joan, like the rest of us. A few
days in this air will set you above all fears of the kind you mention."
Then, after a moment's silence, I added, feeling I should estrange her
confidence altogether if I blundered any more and treated her like a
child--
"I think, perhaps, the true explanation is that you pity him for loving
you, and at the same time you feel the repulsion of the healthy,
vigorous animal for what is weak and timid. If he came up boldly and
took you by the throat and shouted that he would force you to love
him--well, then you would feel no fear at all. You would know exactly
how to deal with him. Isn't it, perhaps, something of that kind?"
The girl made no reply, and when I took her hand I felt that it trembled
a little and was cold.
"It's not his love that I'm afraid of," she said hurriedly, for at this
moment we heard the dip of a paddle in the water, "it's something in his
very soul that terrifies me in a way I have never been terrified
before,--yet fascinates me.
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