de for
withdrawing?"

I heard her breath quickening--I felt her hand growing cold. In spite
of what she had said to me when we were alone, I began to be afraid of
her. I was wrong.

"A reason that it is very hard to tell you," she answered. "There is a
change in me, Sir Percival--a change which is serious enough to justify
you, to yourself and to me, in breaking off our engagement."

His face turned so pale again that even his lips lost their colour. He
raised the arm which lay on the table, turned a little away in his
chair, and supported his head on his hand, so that his profile only was
presented to us.

"What change?" he asked. The tone in which he put the question jarred
on me--there was something painfully suppressed in it.

She sighed heavily, and leaned towards me a little, so as to rest her
shoulder against mine. I felt her trembling, and tried to spare her by
speaking myself. She stopped me by a warning pressure of her hand, and
then addressed Sir Percival one more, but this time without looking at
him.

"I have heard," she said, "and I believe it, that the fondest and
truest of all affections is the affection which a woman ought to bear
to her husband. When our engagement began that affection was mine to
give, if I could, and yours to win, if you could. Will you pardon me,
and spare me, Sir Percival, if I acknowledge that it is not so any
longer?"

A few tears gathered in her eyes, and dropped over her cheeks slowly as
she paused and waited for his answer. He did not utter a word. At the
beginning of her reply he had moved the hand on which his head rested,
so that it hid his face. I saw nothing but the upper part of his
figure at the table. Not a muscle of him moved. The fingers of the
hand which supported his head were dented deep in his hair. They might
have expressed hidden anger or hidden grief--it was hard to say
which--there was no significant trembling in them. There was nothing,
absolutely nothing, to tell the secret of his thoughts at that
moment--the moment which was the crisis of his life and the crisis of
hers.

I was determined to make him declare himself, for Laura's sake.

"Sir Percival!" I interposed sharply, "have you nothing to say when my
sister has said so much? More, in my opinion," I added, my unlucky
temper getting the better of me, "than any man alive, in your position,
has a right to hear from her."

That last rash sentence opened a way for him by which