turning back, threw
herself upon him with a protest which was all, and more than all, a
surrender. She had never yet given herself to him so much as in that
movement of reproach.

"Didn't you expect me, and weren't you sure?" he asked, smiling at her
and standing there till she arrived.

"I didn't know--it was terrible--it's awful! I saw you in your place, in
the house, when you came. As soon as we got here I went out to those
steps that go up to the stage and I looked out, with my father--from
behind him--and saw you in a minute. Then I felt too nervous to speak! I
could never, never, if you were there! My father didn't know you, and I
said nothing, but Olive guessed as soon as I came back. She rushed at
me, and she looked at me--oh, how she looked! and she guessed. She
didn't need to go out to see for herself, and when she saw how I was
trembling she began to tremble herself, to believe, as I believed, we
were lost. Listen to them, listen to them, in the house! Now I want you
to go away--I will see you to-morrow, as long as you wish. That's all I
want now; if you will only go away it's not too late, and everything
will be all right!"

Preoccupied as Ransom was with the simple purpose of getting her bodily
out of the place, he could yet notice her strange, touching tone, and
her air of believing that she might really persuade him. She had
evidently given up everything now--every pretence of a different
conviction and of loyalty to her cause; all this had fallen from her as
soon as she felt him near, and she asked him to go away just as any
plighted maiden might have asked any favour of her lover. But it was the
poor girl's misfortune that whatever she did or said, or left unsaid,
only had the effect of making her dearer to him and making the people
who were clamouring for her seem more and more a raving rabble.

He indulged not in the smallest recognition of her request, and simply
said, "Surely Olive must have believed, must have known, I would come."

"She would have been sure if you hadn't become so unexpectedly quiet
after I left Marmion. You seemed to concur, to be willing to wait."

"So I was, for a few weeks. But they ended yesterday. I was furious that
morning, when I learned your flight, and during the week that followed I
made two or three attempts to find you. Then I stopped--I thought it
better. I saw you were very well hidden; I determined not even to write.
I felt I _could_ wait--with that last day