Then he kissed me at last: terrible kisses that crushed my lips upon my clenched teeth, bruising and cutting them; that scorched my eyes and my throat.
“Say you love me,” he demanded.
“Kiss me, Maurice—take me,” I cried in a whispering voice. But something in me was dying a little death—hope, youth, love, all were passing. I saw like a drowning woman all the glory of life depart. And in that moment I realised a terrible thing. All was in vain. I could never love my husband. Something in his touch, in his nearness, in the scent of his hair as he bent over me, sent an agony of revulsion shuddering through me, as though some spider of which I had a peculiar fear and horror was creeping over me. I knew not whether it was of the flesh or of the soul, or a terrible mingling of both. I only knew that this piercing agony of the Magdalene who loves not where she gives would always be mine to suffer as the wife of Maurice Stair. One other thing I knew, too: I should not long be able to sustain that agony; it would kill me. Almost I believed myself dying then. My limbs turned to stone, my veins seemed filled with lead. He might have been showering his passionate kisses on a marble image.
Perhaps no other woman in the world would have been affected in that terrible way by his personality: perhaps no other man in the world would have inspired such a feeling in me. That it should be so was my tragedy—and his!
“Why are you so white?” he cried between his blazing kisses. “So white—like a snowdrop? Open your eyes, Deirdre—let me see love in them.”
“No—no,” I cried, resolute to drown, to die. I wound my stone arms round his neck and drew him close to my cold face. But I dared not open my eyes for fear he should see the dying gestures of my soul.
Then a strange thing happened. He leaned over me once more and put one more kiss like a coal of fire on my lips, then drew gently away from my arms. There was a jingle of spurs, the tread of heavily booted feet, and presently the sound of a galloping horse. I lay very still where he had left me, my eyes still closed, my leaden arms where they had fallen at my sides, the words of reprieve ringing like little bells in my brain:
“I am not worthy—first I will earn this gift of you. Good-bye.”
If my soul (which was Anthony Kinsella’s) sang a chant of praise because of respite, that other physical me (which was Maurice Stair’s) had heaviness and sorrow because of the knowledge that the battle was all to fight again, the agony to re-endure.