“I will; but answer me this one question first;—do you love me?”

“I will not answer it!”

“Then I will conclude you do; and so good-night.”

She turned from me to hide the emotion she could not quite control; but I took her hand and fervently kissed it.

“Gilbert, do leave me!” she cried, in a tone of such thrilling anguish that I felt it would be cruel to disobey.

This passage shows just the level of strain on Helen from her situation and the discrepancies in their world, where Gilbert, as a respected man, can freely declare his love, but Helen, a single mother, wouldn’t dare say anything like that for fear of further ostracization or worse from the rest of society. Why can’t Gilbert understand the situation and simply leave he be, or fully understand where she’s coming from?