not help himself. He seized her outstretched hands and held them together and kneeled at her feet. She was the victim of his happiness.
"I am cruel too, I am cruel," he repeated, with a sort of groan, looking up at her imploringly.
His presence and touch seemed to dispel a horrible vision, and she met his upward look of sorrow with something like the return of consciousness after fainting. Then she dwelt on it with that growing pathetic movement of the brow which accompanies the revival of some tender recollection. The look of sorrow brought back what seemed a very far-off moment—the first time she had ever seen it, in the library at the Abbey. Sobs rose, and great tears fell fast. Deronda would not let her hands go—held them still with one of his, and himself pressed her handkerchief against her eyes. She submitted like a half-soothed child, making an effort to speak, which was hindered by struggling sobs. At last she succeeded in saying brokenly—
"I said . . . I said . . . it should be better . . . better with me . . . for having known you."
His eyes too were larger with tears. She wrested one of her hands from his, and returned his action, pressing his tears away.
