.

' Her very voice failed her.

She could not speak what was in her mind; she turned away, hiding in her hands her face which fairly seemed to burn.
This, she thought, was the time for a true lover's opportunity! Oh, if she had been a man, and a woman had so appealed, how he would have sprung to her side and taken her in his arms, and in a wild rapture of declared affection have swept away all the pain of her shame! But she remained alone.

There was no springing to her side; no rapture of declared affection; no obliteration of her shame.

She had to bear it all alone.