then heeding it, that he was reading
Hebrew with Mirah's brother.

"He is very ill--very near death now," Deronda went on, nervously, and
then stopped short. He felt that he must wait. Would she divine the
rest?

"Did she tell you that I went to her?" said Gwendolen, abruptly,
looking up at him.

"No," said Deronda. "I don't understand you."

She turned away her eyes again, and sat thinking. Slowly the color
dried out of face and neck, and she was as pale as before--with that
almost withered paleness which is seen after a painful flush. At last
she said--without turning toward him--in a low, measured voice, as if
she were only thinking aloud in preparation for future speech--

"But _can_ you marry?"

"Yes," said Deronda, also in a low voice. "I am going to marry."

At first there was no change in Gwendolen's attitude: she only began to
tremble visibly; then she looked before her with dilated eyes, as at
something lying in front of her, till she stretched her arms out
straight, and cried with a smothered voice--

"I said I should be forsaken. I have been a cruel woman. And I am
forsaken."

Deronda's anguish was intolerable. He could not help himself. He seized
her outstretched hands and held them together, and kneeled at her feet.
She was the victim of his happiness.

"I am cruel, too, I am cruel," he repeated, with a sort of groan,
looking up at her imploringly.

His presence and touch seemed to dispel a horrible vision, and she met
his upward look of sorrow with something like the return of
consciousness after fainting. Then she dwelt on it with that growing
pathetic movement of the brow which accompanies the revival of some
tender recollection. The look of sorrow brought back what seemed a very
far-off moment--the first time she had ever seen it, in the library at
the Abbey. Sobs rose, and great tears fell fast. Deronda would not let
her hands go--held them still with one of his, and himself pressed her
handkerchief against her eyes. She submitted like a half-soothed child,
making an effort to speak, which was hindered by struggling sobs. At
last she succeeded in saying, brokenly--

"I said--I said--it should be better--better with me--for having known
you."

His eyes too were larger with tears. She wrested one of her hands from
his, and returned his action, pressing his tears away.

"We shall not be quite parted," he said. "I will write to you always,
when I can, and you will answer?"

He waited