He fed his eyes upon her, and kept so long silent that Emily’s cheek coloured, and she half turned away. Then he spoke abruptly, yet with humility, which the consciousness of his purpose could not overcome.
‘You know that I have been away since I saw you last. I tried to put you out of my mind. I couldn’t do it, and I am driven back to you.’
‘I hoped we should not meet again like this, Mr. Dagworthy,’ Emily replied, in a low voice, but firmly. She felt that her self-respect was to be tested to the uttermost, but she was better able to control herself than at the last interview. The sense of being passionately sought cannot but enhance a woman’s dignity in her own eyes, and Emily was not without perception of the features in Dagworthy’s character which made him anything but a lover to be
