To my amazement, far from having recovered the effect of her surprise, she was yet more overcome than at first; crouching among the cushions with her head bent down over her knees, and covering her face with her hands.

Reclining in the soft pile, I held her in my arms, overcoming perforce what seemed hysterical reluctance; but when I would have withdrawn the little hands, she threw herself on my knee, burying her face in the cushions.
"It is very wicked," she sobbed; "I cannot ask you to forgive me." "Forgive what, my child?
Eveena, you are certainly ill.

Calm yourself, and don't try to talk just now." "I am not ill, I assure you," she faltered, resisting the arm that sought to raise her; "but ..." In my hands, however, she was powerless as an infant; and I would hear nothing till I held her gathered within my arm and her two hands fast in my right.

Now that I could look into the face she strove to avert, it was clear that she was neither hysterical nor simply ill; her agitation, however unreasonable and extravagant, was real.
"What troubles you, my own?
I promise you not to say one word of reproach; I only want to understand with what you so bitterly reproach yourself." "But you cannot help being angry," she urged, "if you understand what I have done.

It is the _charny_, which I never tasted till that night, and never ought to have tasted again.