was about yourself." She waited as if it might come to him; but as, only
meeting her eyes in wonder, he gave no sign, she burnt her ships. "Has
it ever happened?"

Then it was that, while he continued to stare, a light broke for him and
the blood slowly came to his face, which began to burn with recognition.

"Do you mean I told you--?" But he faltered, lest what came to him
shouldn't be right, lest he should only give himself away.

"It was something about yourself that it was natural one shouldn't
forget--that is if one remembered you at all. That's why I ask you," she
smiled, "if the thing you then spoke of has ever come to pass?"

Oh then he saw, but he was lost in wonder and found himself embarrassed.
This, he also saw, made her sorry for him, as if her allusion had been a
mistake. It took him but a moment, however, to feel it hadn't been, much
as it had been a surprise. After the first little shock of it her
knowledge on the contrary began, even if rather strangely, to taste sweet
to him. She was the only other person in the world then who would have
it, and she had had it all these years, while the fact of his having so
breathed his secret had unaccountably faded from him. No wonder they
couldn't have met as if nothing had happened. "I judge," he finally
said, "that I know what you mean. Only I had strangely enough lost any
sense of having taken you so far into my confidence."

"Is it because you've taken so many others as well?"

"I've taken nobody. Not a creature since then."