I feel I _can_ do it. I never could have, till now."
"But listen to me--do listen! Think how extraordinary it will seem
to her. She has no suspicion of----"
"She has! She knows! I sent her: a year ago, a poem--some verses
of my writing, which told her."
Mrs. Hannaford kept silence with a face of distress.
"Is there any harm," he pursued, "in asking you whether she has ever
spoken of me lately--since that time?"
"She has," admitted the other reluctantly, "but not in a way to make
one think----"
"No, no! I expected nothing of the kind. She has mentioned me; that
is enough. I am not utterly expelled from her thoughts, as a
creature outlawed by all decent people----"
"Of course not. She is too reasonable and kind."
"That she is!" exclaimed Piers, with a passionate delight on his
visage and in his voice. "And she would _rather_ I spoke to her--I
feel she would! She, with her fine intelligence and noble heart, she
would think it dreadful that a man did not dare to approach her,
just because of something not his fault, something that made him no
bit the less a man, and capable of honour. I know that thought would
shake her with pity and indignation. So far I can read in her. What!
You think I know her too little? And the thought of her never out of
my mind for these five years! I have got to know her better and
better, as time went on. Every word she spoke at Ewell stayed in my
memory, and by perpetual repetition has grown into my life.
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