'It seems to me so hard that there should be such a gulf between you
and me.' This he said after he had been silent for a while; and as he
spoke he looked away from her at the fire.

'I don't know that there is any particular gulf,' she replied.

'Yes, there is. And it is you that make it. Whenever I attempt to speak
to you as a friend you draw yourself off from me, and shut yourself up.
I know that it is not jealousy.'

'Jealousy, Captain Aylmer!'

'Jealousy with my aunt, I mean.'

'No, indeed.'

'You are infinitely too proud for that; but I am sure that a stranger
seeing it would think that it was so.'

'I don't know what it is that I do or that I ought not to do. But all
my life everything that I have done at Perivale has always been wrong.'

'It would have been so natural that you and I should be friends.'

'If we are enemies, Captain Aylmer, I don't know it.'

'But if ever I venture to speak of your future life you always repel me
as though you were determined to let me know that it should not be a
matter of care to me.'