Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 2.djvu/65

Rh "I know why you didn't write!" Mrs. Rooth declared, archly.

"You must go to London," Peter said, without heeding this remark.

"Ah, if we could only get there it would be a relief. I should draw a long breath. There at least I know where I am, and what people are. But here one lives on hollow ground!"

"The sooner you get away the better," Sherringham went on.

"I know why you say that."

"It's just what I'm explaining."

"I couldn't have held out if I hadn't been so sure of Miriam," said Mrs. Rooth.

"Well, you needn't hold out any longer."

"Don't you trust her?" asked Sherringham's hostess.

"Trust her?"

"You don't trust yourself. That's why you were silent, why we might have thought you were dead, why we might have perished ourselves."

"I don't think I understand you; I don't know what you're talking about," Sherringham said. "But it doesn't matter."

"Doesn't it? Let yourself go: why should you struggle?" the old woman inquired.

Her unexpected insistence annoyed her visitor, and he was silent again, looking at her, on the point of telling her that he didn't like her tone. But he had his tongue under such control that he was able presently to say, instead of this—