"Not in that way," she answered, in a low voice. "I thought you--I always understood--" The memory of his professed suffering, his oft-expressed adoration for the dead Adele, checked her, filled her with a storm of doubt, and she could not finish her accusation.
He caught up the thread she dropped. "I did love Adele, I love her still--a holy, mysterious love--a love you cannot understand; my feeling for you is different, but no less high. It is the cry of a lonely, desolate man. Come to me, Viola; do not question; follow your heart's leadings, as I do." The light of her accusing young eyes pierced the armor of his defence, and he fell upon his knees before her. "I can't explain it, but it is true, Viola. I have not deceived you. I loved her--I love her still. She is vital in my life. I was sincere in all I said; but you are flesh and she is spirit. Don't you see? You can comfort me--assist me, work with me as she cannot."
As he poured out his passionate plea, a sense of injury, of disillusionment, overran the girl. She revolted from the touch of his head against her knee. "You must not talk to me that way--you belong to her." She pushed him away. "Get up. Go away from me. I hate you now."
There was something so final, so convicting in her gesture of repulsion that the man's head dropped. He covered his face and uttered a groaning cry, and so lay silently sobbing, while she looked down at him--woman-grown in that instant. His passion moved her to pity, not to love, and she put him aside gently and left the room without further word. Her master, her highest earthly guide, had fallen from his lofty place and lay grovelling at her feet. This conception, vague but massive, oppressed her heart, and lay upon her brain like a leaden cap.
At the moment she, too, despaired of life and knew not where to turn for aid.