"
He turned his face away from her again, either troubled by what she had
been saying or unable to find words and confidence to go on with the
confession of his trouble.
"Is it," Helen inquired, "that you have found that you have yourself a
doubt of the value of asceticism?"
"No, not that," he answered, dropping his voice; "but--but I begin to
doubt myself."
She leaned forward in her chair. Some power outside of her own will
seemed to constrain her.
"Philip," she said, bending over and touching his hand, "has love made
you doubt?"
The question evidently took him entirely by surprise. She wondered what
impulse had made her speak and how her question would affect him. He
flushed to his forehead, and cast at her a look so full of pathetic
appeal that she felt the tears come into her eyes. It was the look of a
hunted creature which sees no way of escape, yet which has not the fury
of resistance, which pleads its own weakness. She knew that Philip
could not equivocate and that the secret of his heart lay bare before
her. She shrank from what she had done, and a flood of pity and
sympathy filled her mind.
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