The words in themselves might still have failed to arrest him, but the look, the gesture, the withering emphasis on the "_you_?"--he stood still, and after a moment, staggered a step across the pathway like a drunken man.
"If you confess it was all a delusion," resumed Leonore, in slightly modified accents, for she was now only eager to put an end to the scene, and a twinge of pity made itself felt, "if you allow that you have utterly misinterpreted a little ordinary civility--well, perhaps it was more than civility, call it kindness if you will--I will try to forget,--but you also must forget, and never breath a word of this again."
"But--but----" he faltered. Then staggered afresh, unrestrainedly, it might almost have been thought ostentatiously. It was not a pretty spectacle.
"For Heaven's sake, pull yourself together," cried Leonore, with a sense of repulsion. "Be ashamed of this. Own that you are ashamed of it. Own that I never gave you cause to think--that you have been dreaming----"
"Hush. I am awake now," said the young man, slowly. And he turned his burning eyes upon her till she shrank, but this time neither from fear nor loathing; it was a new sensation which made itself disagreeably felt. Was she indeed as innocent as she said? Was there not a faint horrible suspicion of bluster in her fury of contempt and repudiation? She was silent, struggling with herself.
"You have broken my heart, I think," said Tommy, in the same slow, dull tone. "You have done what I was told you would do. You have played with me, as others of your kind have played with others of mine. God forgive you for your cruelty, but I--I am awake now,----" and again he muttered to himself like a man in a dream.
"Mr. Andrews, can you say?--stop, I suppose you can. Wait a moment; let me speak. I was lonely, unhappy, absorbed in myself and the empty weariness of my life when--when I met you. I read in your face that you--well, say it was my fault, say it was," suddenly impetuous--"at most it was but a passing folly, and it was over almost before it had begun. If it is any satisfaction to you now, I will say that I am--sorry. I can do no more."
"No, you can do no more. It is much for a great lady to go so far. It is the usual thing, I suppose;--" and again his mentor's words, "She was sorry, _so_ sorry," echoed in the speaker's ears--"and the--the episode is at an end. Again I say God forgive you, Mrs. Stubbs, for I never can."