Jasper?'
Rosa turned aside her head in answering: 'Eddy's uncle, and my
music-master.'
'You do not love him?'
'Ugh!' She put her hands up to her face, and shook with fear or
horror.
'You know that he loves you?'
'O, don't, don't, don't!' cried Rosa, dropping on her knees, and
clinging to her new resource. 'Don't tell me of it! He terrifies
me. He haunts my thoughts, like a dreadful ghost. I feel that I
am never safe from him. I feel as if he could pass in through the
wall when he is spoken of.' She actually did look round, as if she
dreaded to see him standing in the shadow behind her.
'Try to tell me more about it, darling.'
'Yes, I will, I will. Because you are so strong. But hold me the
while, and stay with me afterwards.'
'My child! You speak as if he had threatened you in some dark
way.'
'He has never spoken to me about--that. Never.'
'What has he done?'
'He has made a slave of me with his looks. He has forced me to
understand him, without his saying a word; and he has forced me to
keep silence, without his uttering a threat. When I play, he never
moves his eyes from my hands. When I sing, he never moves his eyes
from my lips. When he corrects me, and strikes a note, or a chord,
or plays a passage, he himself is in the sounds, whispering that he
pursues me as a lover, and commanding me to keep his secret. I
avoid his eyes, but he forces me to see them without looking at
them.
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