He kept staring at her with something akin to horror. “A second-degree count?” he whispered. “You don’t know what you’re saying at all. I can’t hope for that. I can’t, don’t you understand? I didn’t tell you all of it that night.” He groaned. “Do I have to stand here naked before you? The girl wasn’t the only one... there were others...” Instantly he saw his mistake. Instantly he saw that he had lost her irrevocably now, pushed himself beyond the pale. That if there had been a chance before this, now there was none. And frightened — he had always been so quick to take fright — he tried to hold her to him, where she was and as she was, to keep from losing her. And she in turn, taking fright from hi fright, abandoned him even quicker, receded all the more and with an added haste, just as a frantic beating of the water sometimes sends an unmanned boat even further off.