"Oh, God! be good to me for once!" she cried with soundless lips. "Let him come—I will do the rest. There is no barrier I cannot break down between him and me. He is mine—dear God, you know that he is mine! I bound him with my hair, my lips, my soul. I gave him of my best, I gave him my girlhood—I bore his son." The green leaves of the passion-plant trailing over the window lapped gently against her cheek, and she put up her hands to them. "Oh, trees, leaves, all green things, help me—let him come——"
And he came, through the open gate, up the broad pathway, straight to her.
Her eyes were closed tight to stop her tears, but she heard him coming as she stood there with the shaded lamps behind her in the empty room, and the silver night on her face. He came so close to the verandah that he could look in upon her, and plainly see her pale emotion-wrung face and the tears urging through her tightly-closed lids and dripping from her lashes. Her lips opened and her breath came heavily, and the sight of her took strange hold of him. His own lips unclosed; the marks self-mockery had made about them had been wiped out; his handsome, haggard eyes had changed, boyhood had come back to them.
"Won't you come into the garden?" His voice had all the sweetness of Ireland in it. She unclosed her eyes and came out to him, the tears still shining on her cheeks: a pale, ardent woman—strangely like a narcissus.
He put an arm through hers and they walked together in the gracious dimness.
Down the centre of the garden dividing two lawns ran a high hedge of Barbadoes-thorn. It is a shrub garlanded with white tiny flowers of a perfume probably the most pungent in the world—much like the gardenia, or tuberose, but heavier, sweeter. To-night this perfume hung upon the air, and stayed with these lovers all their lives after. They sat on the grass under a giant flamboyant tree and a tiny green tree-frog sang a love-song to its mate in the branches over their heads. But they did not hear. They were deaf to everything now save the drumming in their hearts and the urging of their pulses. Carson had his arm about her, half for her support, wholly because he could not help it. Her tears were still on her face, and he leaned so close that his cheek was wetted by them. One heavy drop fell on his lips and he tasted the salt of it, and it was as if he had tasted blood. Suddenly he turned her lips to his and began to kiss her with a mouth of flame.
"Eve! Eve!" she cried, afraid of her gladness. He did not speak; nor could he, if he would. Only he dragged kisses from the mouth he had desired so long; the eyes he had looked away from; the curving, cloven chin; the throat that shone in the darkness like a moony pearl. And when he came to her lips again, they kissed him back with wild, sweet kisses. Her arms were round him too. One held his throat and her eyes were shut and sealed.
After some short, blind moments, in which she was lost, and he torn in two between desire and iron-determination, he lifted her suddenly to her feet.
"Darling, my heart, good-bye—for a little while," he said; "and then—never good-bye again. The next time we kiss, you must be my wife."