“In—!”
I gave a little cry. He seized me by the wrist, and dragged me towards the opened door.
“O, Gogo!” I choked, struggling and resisting, “we shall be seen.”
“What does it matter if we are,” he said fiercely, “since you loathe me?”
I wept and fondled him, in an agony of fear.
“I don’t loathe you. You are my one stay and comfort. Gogo! Will you give me back to that terror?”
He fell squatting at my feet—it was his substitute for kneeling—and clasped his arms about my skirt.
“Beast!” he groaned; “I neither meant nor could help it. To play upon your fears!—To taste love by deputy!—O, forgive me, forgive me!”
“Yes,” I said quietly, “for the second time and always, because of what you have done. But I fear for myself now, and shall go on fearing. Let me go—O, Gogo, let me escape into the woods, and break my heart on frost and hunger rather than wrong.”
Still clutching at me, with a look of horror, as if he felt the shadow of his last hope eluding him, he scrambled erect again.