rinking the tea as possible, but it could not last for ever, and
finally he took the cup from me, put it down, and kneeling before me
again he put his arms about me.

Something in my being there alone with him, in his growing excitement,
suddenly frightened me out of my wits. With a cry I pushed him away from
me with both hands.

"Oh, don't!" I said; "don't you see I can't bear it? I hate it. Let me
go, please." And I struggled to be free of him.

He looked up at me with a dazed expression.

"But you are going to marry me in three days," he said. "I shall be your
husband. What was it you said? That you hated my caresses? You don't
mean it, Bawn?"

"I do mean it," I cried, with a frantic repulsion. "I wish you had not
brought me here. Please get up and let me go. I tell you I am frightened
of you."

He got up and stood a little bit away from me, looking at me in a
shocked bewilderment.

"But you are going to marry me?" he said. "And this is to be our home
together. And you accepted me of your own free will. Do girls in love
behave like this to their lovers?"

"You should not have frightened me," I cried, bursting into tears. "You
should not have brought me here. How can you say I accepted you of my
own free will when it is killing me? You know that I accepted you
because your father holds a disgraceful secret and has frightened the
life out of my grandfather and grandmother. I had to do it for them
because they were old and it would kill them if the disgrace were
published."

It had never entered into my mind that he could be in ignorance of how
his father had constrained us, but now it flashed on my amazed mind
that he had not known at all.

"Good God!" he said. "Good God!" and stood staring at me with a grey
face.

I was frightened then of the mischief I had done, and sorry for him too.

"I thought you knew," I stammered.

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE END OF IT

I saw in the momentary pause that his dog came up beside him and licked
his hand and he did not seem to notice her.

"You thought I knew," he repeated, his colour becoming a dull purple.
"You thought I knew. And I thought your shrinking from me was but maiden
modesty, and that if you did not love me you were going to love me. Why,
when you trembled in my arms as I lifted you through the door I thought
it was love; and all the time it was horror and repulsion. What a fool I
have been! But, by Heaven--I have been fooled too!"

His expressio