ugh which Beatrice
walked must have been less contaminating than this morass in which I
flounder."

She was silent a moment and he had leisure to steal a closer look at
her. It was the first time since their meeting that he had really seen
her face; and he was struck by the touch of awe that had come upon her
beauty. Perhaps her recent suffering had spiritualised a countenance
already pure and lofty; for as he looked at her it seemed to him that
she was transformed into a being beyond earthly contact, and his heart
sank with the sense of her remoteness. Presently she began to speak and
his consciousness of the distance between them was increased by the
composure of her manner. All signs of confusion and distress had
vanished. She faced him with the same innocent freedom as under her
father's roof, and all that had since passed between them seemed to have
slipped from her without a trace.

She began by thanking him for coming, and then at once reverted to her
desperate situation and to her determination to escape.

"I am alone and friendless," she said, "and though the length of our
past acquaintance" (and here indeed she blushed) "scarce warrants such a
presumption, yet I believe that in my father's name I may appeal to you.
It may be that with the best will to help me you can discover no way of
doing so, but at least I shall have the benefit of your advice. I now
see," she added, again deeply blushing, but keeping her eyes on his,
"the madness of my late attempt, and the depth of the abyss from which
you rescued me. Death were indeed preferable to such chances; but I do
not mean to die while life holds out a hope of liberation."

As she spoke there flashed on Odo the reason of her remoteness and
composure. He had come to her as a lover: she received him as a friend.
His longing to aid her was inspired by passion: she saw in it only the
natural impulse of benevolence. So mortifying was the discovery that he
hardly followed her words. All his thoughts were engaged in reviewing
the past; and he now saw that if, as she said, their acquaintance scarce
warranted her appealing to him as a friend, it still less justified his
addressing her as a lover. Only once before had he spoken to her of
love, and that under circumstances which almost forbade a return to the
subject, or at least compelled an added prudence in approaching it. Once
again he found himself the prisoner of his folly, and stood aghast at
the ingenuity of the