But her hand rested at first without a grasp; she had another effort to make, the effort of leaving him, of which everything that had just passed between them, his presence, irresistible, overcharged with it, doubled the difficulty.

There was something--she couldn't have told what; it was as if, shut in together, they had come too far--too far for where they were; so that the mere act of her quitting him was like the attempt to recover the lost and gone.

She had taken in with her something that, within the ten minutes, and especially within the last three or four, had slipped away from her--which it was vain now, wasn't it?
to try to appear to clutch or to pick up.

That consciousness in fact had a pang, and she balanced, intensely, for the lingering moment, almost with a terror of her endless power of surrender.

He had only to press, really, for her to yield inch by inch, and she fairly knew at present, while she looked at him through her cloud, that the confession of this precious secret sat there for him to pluck.