And then by an awkward intuition she looked in his face and saw written there all the hopelessness and longing which he was striving to conceal.

For one moment she saw clearly, and then the crooked perplexities of the world seemed to stare cruelly in her eyes.

A sob caught her voice, and before she was conscious of her action she laid a hand on Lewis's arm and burst into tears.
The sight was so unexpected that it deprived him of all power of action.
Then came the fatally easy solution that it was but reaction of over-strained nerves.

Always ill at ease in a woman's presence, a woman's tears reduced him to despair.

He stroked her hair gently as he would have quieted a favourite horse.
"I am so sorry that these brutes have frightened you.