"As soon as I told you what I had done.I was scrupulous about this, you will remember; I went straight downstairs to confess to you.You turned away from me, saying nothing; I couldn't imagine--as I vow Ican't imagine now--why such a matter should appear so closely to touch you.I went out on some business and when I returned you had quitted the house.It had all the look of my having offended you, of your wishing to get away from me.You didn't even give me time to tell you how it was that, in spite of your advice, I determined to see for myself what my discovery represented.You must do me justice and hear what determined me."Mrs.Ryves got up from her scat and asked him, as a particular favour, not to allude again to his discovery.It was no concern of hers at all, and she had no warrant for prying into his secrets.She was very sorry to have been for a moment so absurd as to appear to do so, and she humbly begged his pardon for her meddling.Saying this she walked on with a charming colour in her cheek, while he laughed out, though he was really bewildered, at the endless capriciousness of women.Fortunately the incident didn't spoil the hour, in which there were other sources of satisfaction, and they took their course to her lodgings with such pleasant little pauses and excursions by the way as permitted her to show him the objects of interest at Dover.She let him stop at a wine-merchant's and buy a bottle for luncheon, of which, in its order, they partook, together with a pudding invented by Miss Teagle, which, as they hypocritically swallowed it, made them look at each other in an intimacy of indulgence.They came out again and, while Sidney grubbed in the gravel of the shore, sat selfishly on the Parade, to the disappointment of Miss Teagle, who had fixed her hopes on a fly and a ladylike visit to the castle.Baron had his eye on his watch--he had to think of his train and the dismal return and many other melancholy things; but the sea in the afternoon light was a more appealing picture; the wind had gone down, the Channel was crowded, the sails of the ships were white in the purple distance.The young man had asked his companion (he had asked her before) when she was to come back to Jersey Villas, and she had said that she should probably stay at Dover another week.It was dreadfully expensive, but it was doing the child all the good in the world, and if Miss Teagle could go up for some things she should probably be able to manage an extension.
Earlier in the day she had said that she perhaps wouldn't return to Jersey Villas at all, or only return to wind up her connection with Mrs.Bundy.At another moment she had spoken of an early date, an immediate reoccupation of the wonderful parlours.Baron saw that she had no plan, no real reasons, that she was vague and, in secret, worried and nervous, waiting for something that didn't depend on herself.A silence of several minutes had fallen upon them while they watched the shining sails; to which Mrs.Ryves put an end by exclaiming abruptly, but without completing her sentence: "Oh, if you had come to tell me you had destroyed them--""Those terrible papers? I like the way you talk about 'destroying!'
You don't even know what they are."
"I don't want to know; they put me into a state.""What sort of a state?"
"I don't know; they haunt me."
"They haunted me; that was why, early one morning, suddenly, Icouldn't keep my hands off them.I had told you I wouldn't touch them.I had deferred to your whim, your superstition (what is it?)but at last they got the better of me.I had lain awake all night threshing about, itching with curiosity.It made me ill; my own nerves (as I may say) were irritated, my capacity to work was gone.
