am never safe from him. I feel as if he could pass in through the
wall when he is spoken of.' She actually did look round, as if she
dreaded to see him standing in the shadow behind her.

'Try to tell me more about it, darling.'

'Yes, I will, I will. Because you are so strong. But hold me the
while, and stay with me afterwards.'

'My child! You speak as if he had threatened you in some dark
way.'

'He has never spoken to me about--that. Never.'

'What has he done?'

'He has made a slave of me with his looks. He has forced me to
understand him, without his saying a word; and he has forced me to
keep silence, without his uttering a threat. When I play, he never
moves his eyes from my hands. When I sing, he never moves his eyes
from my lips. When he corrects me, and strikes a note, or a chord,
or plays a passage, he himself is in the sounds, whispering that he
pursues me as a lover, and commanding me to keep his secret. I
avoid his eyes, but he forces me to see them without looking at
them. Even when a glaze comes over them (which is sometimes the
case), and he seems to wander away into a frightful sort of dream
in which he threatens most, he obliges me to know it, and to know
that he is sitting close at my side, more terrible to me than
ever.'