At first she merely dropped her tapestry and listened attentively,
smiling and blushing a little when he told her what had immediately
preceded the impulse to write. But gradually the delicate pink left
her face, and she began to move in the spasmodic, uncontrollable way
of a person handling an electric battery. She clasped the arms of
her chair with such force that her arms looked twisted and rigid, and
finally she bent slowly forward, gazing up into his face with eyes
expanded to twice their natural size and not a vestige of color in
her cheek or lips: she looked like a corpse still engaged in the
mechanical act of gazing on the scene of agony which had preceded
its death. Suddenly she sprang to her feet and threw out her hands.
"Stop!" she cried; "stop!"
"What is it?" he demanded, rising to his feet in amazement; he had
been watching her with more or less surprise for some time. "I am
afraid I have frightened you and made you nervous. I had better have
kept my confidence to myself."
"No, no," she cried, throwing back her head and clasping her hands
about it; "it is not that I am frightened--only--it was so strange!
While you were talking it seemed--oh! I cannot describe it!--as if you
were telling me something which I knew as well as yourself.
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