She rose and came towards him, her needlework still in her hands.
"What is the matter?" she said in a voice of some concern. "Are
you ill?"
"No," he answered. "No. I've been looking for Mr. Clive."
"Have you?" she said, a little surprised apparently, but in no
way flustered or disturbed. "Did you find him?"
Dunn did not answer, for indeed he could not, and she said again:
"Did you find him?"
Still he made no answer, for it seemed to him those four words were
the most awful that any one had ever uttered since the beginning of
the world.
"What is the matter?" she said again. "Is anything the matter?"
"Oh, no, no," he said, and he gave himself a little shake like a
man wakening from deep sleep and trying to remember where he was.
"Well, then," she said.
"I found Mr. Clive," he said hardly and abruptly. And he repeated
again: "Yes, I found him."
They remained standing close together and facing each other, and
he saw her as through a veil of red, and it was as though a red
mist enveloped her, and where her shadow lay the earth was red, he
thought, and where she put her foot it seemed to him red tracks
remained, and never before had he understood how utterly he loved
her and must love her, now and for evermore.
But he uttered no sound and made no movement, only stood very still,
thinking to himself how dreadful it was that he loved her so greatly.
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