Yet why should I fear to say to you, face to face, what I have to say ?' The last sentence was like self-questioning uttered aloud; her eyes were fixed on him, and with appeal which searched his heart.
'Fear to say to me ?' Wilfrid repeated, gravely, though without apprehension.

'Has your suffering made strangers of us ?' 'Not in the way you mean, but it has so changed my life that I cannot meet you as I should have done.' Her utterance quickened; her voice lost its steadiness.

'Will you be very generous to me--as good and noble as it is in your heart to be?
I ask you to give me back my promise--to release me.
'Emily!' He gazed at her in bewilderment.

His thought was that she was not herself; her manner since his entrance seemed to confirm it; the tortured lines of her face seemed to express illusory fears.
'Emily! Do you know what you say, dearest ?' 'Yes; I know what I say, and I know how hard you find it to believe me.
If I could explain to you what it is that makes this change, you would not wonder at it, you would understand, you would see that I am doing the only thing I can do.

But I cannot give you my reasons; that must be my sad secret to the end of my life.