Mr. Wilding's conscience wrestled with his stronger passion. It was his
habit to be glib, talking incessantly what time he was in her company,
and seeing to it that his talk was shallow and touched at nothing
belonging to the deeps of human life. Thus was it, perhaps, that this
sudden and enduring silence affected her most oddly; it was as if she
had absorbed some notion of what was passing in his mind. She looked up
suddenly into his face, so white and so composed. Their eyes met, and he
stooped to her suddenly, his long brown ringlets tumbling forward. She
feared his kiss, yet never moved, staring up with fixed, dilated eyes as
if fascinated by his dark, brooding gaze. He paused, hovering above her
upturned face as hovers the hawk above the dove.

"Child," he said at last, and his voice was soft and winning from very
sadness, "child, why do you fear me?"

The truth of it went home to her. She feared him; she feared the
strength that lay behind that calm; she feared the masterfulness of his
wild but inscrutably hidden nature; she was afraid to surrender to
such a man as this, afraid that in the hot crucible of his love her own
nature would be dissolved, transmuted, and rendered part of his. Yet,
though the truth was now made plain to her, she thrust it from her.

"I do not fear you," said she, and her voice at least rang fearlessly.

"Do you hate me, then?" he asked. Her glance grew troubled and fell
away from his; it sought the calm of the river, gleaming golden in the
sunset. There was a pause. Wilding sighed heavily, and straightened
himself from his bending posture.

"You should not have sought thus to compel me, she said presently.

"I own it," he answered a thought bitterly. "I own it. Yet what hope had
I but in compulsion?" She returned him no answer. "You see," he said,
with increasing bitterness, "you see, that had I not seized the chance
that was mine to win you by compulsion I had not won you at all."

"It might," said she, "have been better so for both of us."

"Better for neither," he replied. "Ah, think it not! In time, I swear,
you shall not think it. For you shall come to love me, Ruth," he added
with a note of such assurance that she turned to meet again his gaze.
He answered the wordless question of her eyes. "There is," said he, "no
love of man for woman, so that the man be not wholly unworthy, so that
his passion be sincere and strong, that can fail in time to arouse
response." She smiled a