Her heart suddenly seemed to grow cold, and heavy as lead.
“Why—why did you come?”
“I came for you!” he answered.
And as he spoke he drew her toward him, and took her in his strong arms, and crushed her dainty lace and shimmering satin against his breast, so close that he could feel the throbbing of her heart as it beat wildly and passionately against his own, could feel her hair against his face.
“Oh—oh, let me go!” she panted; but—was it fancy?—she seemed to nestle closer, even as she spoke. “Let me go!”
“Ah, no, never again!” he answered in the low accents of passion—passion that had been suppressed for ten months and longer. “Never again unless you tell me that you do not love me; then I will go forever! What do you say, Olivia? Ah, I won’t shame your sweet trustfulness by asking. Kiss me, my darling! Give me the kiss that I have been thirsting for so long—so long.”
She raised her head, and looked at him, and her soul seemed to melt and fly on the wings of a dove to his. Then, with the little shudder of joy’s excess, she put up her hands, slid them, warm and soft, round his neck, and, drawing his face down, let her lips cling to his.
“Oh, my love, my love! oh, my darling!” she breathed. “If you knew! If you knew! But you will never know, you never can! Must I tell you?”
He answered her with a passionate kiss. Her face burned, and she hid against his breast, drawing the sable lining of his coat round her to hide her as she made her confession:
“I thought—I thought to-night that you were never coming, and that I must see you or—die!”