And yet, for the moment, I am physically unable to answer him.

Who _can_ answer the simplest question ever put with a lump the size of a cocoa-nut in their throat?
My eyelids are still hopelessly drooped over my eyes, but, by some sense that is not eyesight, I am aware that there is a sort of shyness in his face, a diffidence in his address.
"Nancy, have I come back too soon?
am I hurrying you ?" I raise my eyes for an instant, and then let them fall.
"No, thank you," I say, demurely, "not at all.

I have had plenty of time!" And then, somehow, there seems to me something so ludicrous in the sound of my own speech, that I tremble on the verge of a burst of loud and unwilling laughter.
"Speak out all your thought to me, whatever it is," he says, in a tone of grave entreaty, moved and tender, yet manly withal.

"Look at me with the same friendly, fearless eyes that you did last week! I know, my dear, that you always think of others more than yourself, and I dare say that _now_ you are afraid of hurting me! Indeed, you need not be! I am tough and well-seasoned; I have known what pain is before now--it would be very odd, at my time of life, if I had not! I can well bear a little more, and be the better for it, perhaps." I stand stupidly silent.

One's outer man or woman often does an injustice to one's inner feelings.