"I think you had better come. It seems to me that you have said enough for one night to Carson and Miss Chard. She is free of me for ever—I have told her so. And Carson is free of you. Is not that plain to you? They love each other ... let us leave them to settle their affairs. You and I—have many old memories to discuss—unless you would rather discuss them here?"
She went at that, with hurrying feet; and the man with the bleeding, smiling face followed her.
Carson and Poppy were left alone. They stared into each other's eyes with an agony of love and longing and fear. Anger was all gone from Carson's face; only fear was there—fear that was terror. It was the girl who stood now; he had fallen into a chair, wearily, desperately.
"Is it true?" he muttered; "is it true, after all?—a child!" His own sins were forgotten in this overwhelming, bitter revelation.
She went over to him, and kneeled between his knees.
"Yes; it is true, Eve ... your child! ... child of the night you dreamed that poppies grew upon the eternal hills.... I am Poppy! Do you not know me?" He sat up straight then and looked down at her, looked down deep into the glimmering eyes. "I am Poppy," she said, and her voice was wine in a crystal beaker. She dragged the malachite comb from her hair, and it came tumbling down upon her shoulders in long black ropes. "I am Poppy who gave you all her gifts."
The sea helped her; it sent into the room a strong, fresh wind that blew the veils of her hair across his face and lips. He breathed sharply. God! What strange scent of a lost dream was here? What sweet, elusive fragrance of a most dear memory!
He took hold of her hair as though he would have torn it from her head. A light was in his face—he drew her to him, staring into her eyes.
"Poppy? ... Poppy! ... not a dream?... Not the ravings of fever?... Poppy!" He held her hair across his face as though smelling some wonderful flower.