was his duty to stay where he was and protect
her? He had had absolutely no duty in the matter except to tell her
the truth and clear out.

Telling the truth--it ought to have been easy for him who was so
truthful, so passionately sincere. And yet almost anything would have
been easier, for the next step to telling the truth was going away. Of
course he had suffered in staying, but he would have suffered anything
rather than go.

It had been so insidious. His feet had been caught in a net so fine
that he had thought it woven of the hairs split by an exceedingly
acute and subtle conscience. He should have stood still and snapt them
one by one; but he had struggled, until he was so entangled that he
could not get out. And now he perceived that the net which seemed so
fine was the strong net woven by desire. All his subtle reasonings,
his chivalry, his delicacy, his sincerity itself, could be reduced to
this simple and contemptible element. Positively, his whole character,
as he now contemplated it seemed to slip away from him and dissolve in
the irresistible stream, primeval, monstrous, indestructible.

The horror of his position returned upon him, the burden of his
knowledge and her ignorance. If only she knew, if only he could go to
her and tell her everything, all that he knew and all that he guessed!
He was still firm in his conviction that he had no moral right to his
knowledge; it was a thing he almost seemed to have come by
dishonestly. If Miss Harden knew nothing of her father's affairs, it
was to be presumed that they had been purposely kept from her to save
her pain. He had no right to tell her.

No matter, he would tell her, he would tell her this morning, and
having told her, he would go away.

He got up and paced to and fro again. He stood before the open window
till he had chilled himself through; then he came back and cowered
over the fire. A white thing lay by the hearth at his feet, it was
Lucia Harden's shawl, lying crumpled where he had thrown it. It was
the sign and symbol of her presence there. It was also the proof of
it.

How would she feel if she knew that he had been aware of it all the
time? The fact remained that she had risked his waking; there was
comfort for him in that. She had always been kind to him, and he had
never had even a momentary illusion as to the source and the nature of
her kindness. He had taken it, as he had taken her extreme courtesy,
for the measure of the distance t