litude."

"Pardon me."

"You disdain sympathy."

"Do I, Mr. Moore?"

"With your powerful mind you must feel independent of help, of advice,
of society."

"So be it, since it pleases you."

She smiled. She pursued her embroidery carefully and quickly, but her
eyelash twinkled, and then it glittered, and then a drop fell.

Mr. Moore leaned forward on his desk, moved his chair, altered his
attitude.

"If it is not so," he asked, with a peculiar, mellow change in his
voice, "how is it, then?"

"I don't know."

"You do know, but you won't speak. All must be locked up in yourself."

"Because it is not worth sharing."

"Because nobody can give the high price you require for your confidence.
Nobody is rich enough to purchase it. Nobody has the honour, the
intellect, the power you demand in your adviser. There is not a shoulder
in England on which you would rest your hand for support, far less a
bosom which you would permit to pillow your head. Of course you must
live alone."

"I _can_ live alone, if need be. But the question is not how to live,
but how to die alone. That strikes me in a more grisly light."

"You apprehend the effects of the virus? You anticipate an indefinitely
threatening, dreadful doom?"

She bowed.

"You are very nervous and womanish."

"You complimented me two minutes since on my powerful mind."

"You are very womanish. If the whole affair were coolly examined and
discussed, I feel assured it would turn out that there is no danger of
your dying at all."

"Amen! I am very willing to live, if it please God. I have felt life
sweet."

"How can it be otherwise than sweet with your endowments and nature? Do
you truly expect that you will be seized with hydrophobia, and die
raving mad?"

"I _expect_ it, and have _feared_ it. Just now I fear nothing."

"Nor do I, on your account. I doubt whether the smallest particle of
virus mingled with your blood; and if it did, let me assure you that,
young, healthy, faultlessly sound as you are, no harm will ensue. For
the rest, I shall inquire whether the dog was really mad. I hold she was
not mad."

"Tell nobody that she bit me."

"Why should I, when I believe the bite innocuous as a cut of this
penknife? Make yourself easy. _I_ am easy, though I value your life as
much as I do my own chance of happiness in eternity. Look up."

"Why, Mr. Moore?"

"I wish to see if you are cheered. Put your work down; raise your head."

"There----"

"L