He seized her in his arms with neither reserve nor caution.
“Listen,” he said in an impassioned voice, “I have no right to touch you. In five minutes, you will probably not even let me speak to you. I had no right to speak. I had no right to tell you that I loved you!”
She did not draw away. She only looked into his eyes very solemnly.
“You had no right?” she repeated, in a bewildered voice. “Don’t you love me?”
“You don’t have to ask that,” he avowed. “You know it. Your own heart can answer such questions.”
“Then,” she decreed with womanlike philosophy, “you had a right to say so—because I love you, and that is settled.”
“No,” he expostulated, “I tell you I did not have the right. You must forget it. You must forget everything.” He was talking with mad impetuosity.
“It is too late,” she said simply. “Forget!” There was an indignant ring in her words. “Do you think that I could forget—or that, if I could, I would? Do you think it is a thing that happens every day?”
From a tree at the fence line came the softly lamenting note of a small owl, and across the fields floated the strident shriek of a lumbering night freight.
To Saxon’s ears, the inconsequential sounds came with a painful distinctness. It was only his own voice that seemed to him muffled in a confusion of roaring noises. His lips were so dry that he had to moisten them with his tongue.