"Let me help you.

Whatever it is, I can do something." She turned on him fiercely.

"Go back!" she said.

All the confidence, the gentleness, the docility of the last three days were gone; and in their place suspicion glared at him from eyes grown spiteful as a cat's.
"Go back!" she repeated.

"I do not want you! I do not want any one, or any help! Or any protection! Go, do you hear, and let me be!" As she ceased to speak, a sound from above stairs--a sound which this time, the door being open, did reach his ears, froze the words on his lips.