“Because, if I had lied, I should have lost you.”
He leapt to his feet.
“I cannot breathe or think!” he cried. “I must leave you—I must go out!”
As he hurried from the room, she dragged herself to his empty chair, and threw her arms about it with a moan of agony.
* * * * * * * *
All day he wandered through the streets, and only returned home when darkness had closed many hours upon the city. “She will be in bed by now,” he thought.
The firelight made a glow about the room, revealing it untenanted. He sat himself down before the hearth, feeling utterly weary and vanquished. He had done nothing, planned nothing as to the girl’s removal. His brain seemed incapable of concentrated thought.
“I should have lost you—should have lost you.” The cry had been drawn into his very veins. It adapted itself to his pulses—to the knocking of his heart. What was to be the answer?
This, it seemed—a white figure that stole from the bedroom—crept into the firelight—crouched down on the floor beside him and took his unresisting hand. He felt the tremulous clutch, and dared not move. He felt his hand kissed, pressed against warm, bare flesh—felt a hot trickle lace it.
The paroxysm of emotion ceased, and then suddenly she spoke, whispering—