ompose myself, and to
caution Zillah (who read your letter to me), before we met for the first
time that day. On the previous day, I had felt hurt and offended with her
for the manner in which she accounted for your absence from Browndown. I
thought she was not treating me with the same confidence which I should
have placed in her, if our positions had been reversed. When I next saw
her, having your warning in my mind, I made my excuses, and said what I
thought she would expect me to say, under the circumstances. In my
excitement and my wretchedness, I daresay I over-acted my part. At any
rate, I roused the suspicion in her that something was wrong. She not
only asked me if anything had happened, she went the length of saying, in
so many words, that she thought she saw a change in me. I stopped it
there, by declaring that I did not understand her. She must have seen
that I was not telling the truth: she must have known as well as I knew
that I was concealing something from her. For all that, not one word more
escaped her lips. A proud delicacy--I saw it as plainly in her face, as I
now see you--a proud delicacy silenced her; she looked wounded and hurt.
I have been thinking of that look, since I have been here. I have asked
myself (what did not occur to me at the time) if a false woman, who knew
herself to be guilty, would have behaved in that way? Surely a false
woman would have set her wits against mine, and have tried to lead me
into betraying to her what discoveries I had really made? Oscar! that
delicate silence, that wounded look, _will_ plead for her when I think of
her in her absence! I can _not_ feel as satisfied as I once did, that she
is the abominable creature you declare her to be. I know you are
incapable of deceiving me--I know you believe what you say. But is it not
possible that appearances have misled you? Can you really be sure that
you have not made some dreadful mistake?"

Without answering me, he suddenly stopped at a seat under the stone
parapet of the pier, and signed to me to sit down by him. I obeyed.
Instead of looking at me, he kept his head turned away; looking out over
the sea. I could not make him out. He perplexed--he almost alarmed me.

"Have I offended you?" I asked.

He turned towards me again, as abruptly as he had turned away. His eyes
wandered; his face was pale.

"You are a good generous creature," he said, in a confused hasty way.
"Let us talk of something else."

"No!" I ans