Page:The Other House (London, William Heinemann, 1896), Volume 2.djvu/160

146 He stared through the thicker dusk; after which, "I don't understand you!" he dropped. "I do say," he declared, "that, whatever your success today may be admitted to consist of, I didn't at least then make the admission. I didn't at that moment understand you any more than I do now; and I don't think I said anything to lead you to suppose I did. I showed you simply that I was bewildered, and I couldn't have shown it more than by the abrupt way I left you. I don't recognise that I'm committed to anything that deprives me of the right of asking you for a little more light."

"Do you recognise by chance," Rose returned, "the horrible blow?"

"That has fallen on all this wretched place? I'm unutterably shocked by it. But where does it come into our relations?"

Rose smiled in exquisite pity, which had the air, however, of being more especially for herself. "You say you were painfully affected; but you really invite me to go further still. Haven't I put the dots on all the horrid i's and dragged myself through the dust of enough confessions?"

Dennis slowly and grimly shook his head; he