I heard of your presence, and I feared you might intend to abstain from seeking me." He almost held his breath while she spoke, caught in amazement.

He was standing close beside her chair, his right hand rested upon its tall back.
"Did you so intend ?" she asked him.
"I told you even now," he answered with hard-won calm, "that I had made you a sort of promise." "I...

I would not have you keep it," she murmured.

She heard his sharply indrawn breath, felt him leaning over her, and was filled with an unaccountable fear.
"Was it to tell me this you came ?" he asked her, his voice reduced to a whisper.
"No...

yes," she answered, an agony in her mind, which groped for some means to keep him by her side until his danger should be overpast.