He looked full at her handsome face, and in his own handsome face there was a light of blended admiration, anger, and reproach, which she⁠—who loved him so in secret whose heart had long been so full, and he the cause of its overflowing⁠—drooped before. She tried hard to retain her firmness, but he saw it melting away under his eyes. In the moment of its dissolution, and of his first full knowledge of his influence upon her, she dropped, and he caught her on his arm.

“Lizzie! Rest so a moment. Answer what I ask you. If I had not been what you call removed from you and cut off from you, would you have made this appeal to me to leave you?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know. Don’t ask me, Mr. Wrayburn. Let me go back.”

“I swear to you, Lizzie, you shall go directly. I swear to you, you shall go alone. I’ll not accompany you, I’ll not follow you, if you will reply.”