back--drawn by
pure depth of sympathy and ardour of affection--not daring to intrude my
presence openly upon you, but unable to resist the temptation of catching
one glimpse through the window, just to see how you were: for I had left
you apparently in great affliction, and I partly blamed my own want of
forbearance and discretion as the cause of it. If I did wrong, love
alone was my incentive, and the punishment was severe enough; for it was
just as I had reached that tree, that you came out into the garden with
your friend. Not choosing to show myself, under the circumstances, I
stood still, in the shadow, till you had both passed by.'

'And how much of our conversation did you hear?'

'I heard quite enough, Helen. And it was well for me that I did hear it;
for nothing less could have cured my infatuation. I always said and
thought, that I would never believe a word against you, unless I heard it
from your own lips. All the hints and affirmations of others I treated
as malignant, baseless slanders; your own self-accusations I believed to
be overstrained; and all that seemed unaccountable in your position I
trusted that you could account for if you chose.'

Mrs. Graham had discontinued her walk. She leant against one end of the
chimney-piece, opposite that near which I was standing, with her chin
resting on her closed hand, her eyes--no longer burning with anger, but
gleaming with restless excitement--sometimes glancing at me while I
spoke, then coursing the opposite wall, or fixed upon the carpet.

'You should have come to me after all,' said she, 'and heard what I had
to say in my own justification. It was ungenerous and wrong to withdraw
yourself so secretly and suddenly, immediately after such ardent
protestations of attachment, without ever assigning a reason for the
change. You should have told me all-no matter how bitterly. It would
have been better than this silence.'

'To what end should I have done so? You could not have enlightened me
further, on the subject which alone concerned me; nor could you have made
me discredit the evidence of my senses. I desired our intimacy to be
discontinued at once, as you yourself had acknowledged would probably be
the case if I knew all; but I did not wish to upbraid you,--though (as
you also acknowledged) you had deeply wronged me. Yes, you have done me
an injury you can never repair--or any other either--you have blighted
the freshness and promise of youth,