 tell me.
    I never will.
    She turned to leave me. Could I now let her part as she had always parted
from me? No: I had gone too far not to finish. I had come too near the end not
to drive home to it. All the encumbrance of doubt, all the rubbish of indecision
must be removed at once, and the plain truth must be ascertained. She must take
her part, and tell me what it was. I must take mine, and adhere to it.
    A minute, madam, I said, keeping my hand on the door-handle before I opened
it. We have had a long conversation this morning, but the last word has not been
spoken yet: it is yours to speak it.
    May I pass?
    No. I guard the door. I would almost rather die than let you leave me just
now, without speaking the word I demand.
    What dare you expect me to say?
    What I am dying and perishing to hear; what I must and will hear; what you
dare not now suppress.
    Mr. Moore, I hardly know what you mean: you are not like yourself.
    I suppose I hardly was like my usual self, for I scared her; that I could
see: it was right; she must be scared to be won.
    You do know what I mean, and for the first time I stand before you myself. I
have flung off the tutor, and beg to introduce you to the man: and, remember, he
is a gentleman.
    She trembled. She put her hand to mine as if to remove it from the lock; she
might as well have tried to loosen, by her soft touch, metal welded to metal.
She felt she was powerless, and receded; and again she trembled.
    What change I underwent, I cannot explain; but out of her emotion passed
into me a new spirit. I neither was crushed nor elated by her lands and gold; I
thought not of them, cared not for them: they were nothing: dross that could not
dismay me. I saw only herself; her young beautiful form; the grace, the majesty,
the modesty of her girlhood.
    My pupil. I said.
    My master, was the low answer.
    I have a thing to tell you.
    She waited with declined brow, and ringlets drooped.
    I have to tell you, that for four years you have been growing into your
tutor's heart, and that you are rooted there now. I have to declare that you
have bewitched me,
