‘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 contemned.  She dreaded him, and could not turn away as from one who tormented her out of mere ill-breeding.

‘I cannot ask you to pardon me,’ he returned, ’for however often you asked me to leave you, I should pay no heed.  I am here because I can’t help myself; I mean what I say—­I can’t, I can’t help it!  Since you told me there was no hope, I seem to have been in hell.  These are not words to use to you—­I know it.  It isn’t that I don’t respect you, but because I must speak what I feel.  Look—­I am worn out with suffering; I feel as if it would take but a little more to kill me, strong man as I am.  You don’t think I find a pleasure in coming and facing that look you have?  I don’t know that I ever saw the man I couldn’t meet, but before you I feel—­I can’t put it into words, but I feel I should like to hide my face.  Still, I have come, I have followed you here.  It’s more than I can do to give you up.’

At the last words he half sobbed.  Her fear of him would not allow Emily to feel deep distress, but she was awed by the terrible evidence of what he endured.  She could not at once find words for reply.

‘Will you sit down?’ he said.  ’I will stand here, but I have more to say to you before I go.’

‘Why should you say more?’ Emily urged.  ’Can you not think how very painful it is to hear you speak in this way?  What purpose can it serve to speak to me when I may not listen?’

’You must listen.  I can’t be sent away as you would another man; no other on earth can love you as I do, no one.  No one would do for you all that I would do.  My love gives me a claim upon you.  It is you that have brought me to this state; a woman owes a man something who is driven mad by her.  I have a right to be here and to say all I feel.’

He was struggling with a dread of the words he had come to utter; a wild hope sprang in him that he might yet win her in other ways; he used language recklessly, half believing that his arguments would seem of force.  His passion was in the death-grapple with reason and humanity.

‘If your regard for me is so strong,’ Emily replied, ’should you not shrink from causing me pain?  And indeed you have no such right as you claim.  Have I in any way sought to win your affection?  Is it manly to press upon me a suit which you know it is out of my power to favour?  You say you respect me; your words are not consistent with respect.  I owe you nothing, Mr. Dagworthy, and it is certainly my right to demand that you will cease to distress and trouble me.’