He handed out a key through the window. The watch-tower adjoined the post-office, and had been built for the double purpose of overlooking the prison-yard and for the wide outlook it afforded of the surrounding native kraals. The view from there was notoriously charming, and I had heard all about it from several people and been told that I should see it by moonlight. This seemed to be a good opportunity.
“Will you come?” said Anthony Kinsella abruptly. “The view is supposed to be very fine.”
Mr Bleksley had already closed the window and returned to his work.
“On such a night as this it should be perfect,” I said. So we climbed the dark, steep stair together.
The instant we put our feet on the first step he took my hand which hung at my side, interlacing his fingers through mine. Hands can tell each other so much. I suddenly knew things I had never dreamed of before with the feel of Anthony Kinsella’s warm, strong hand clasping mine, and from the close contact of his palm against mine some wonderful, strange message flew up my arm to my heart and brain, flooding me with a thrilling ecstasy I could hardly bear. When we reached the tower’s top I think we both knew all there was to say though no word had been spoken. We leaned against the low enclosing walls and looked down upon a land awash with silver moonlight and far-off ebony hills draped with scarves of mist.
“Deirdre!”
He spoke my name with all the crake gone from his voice, and again it was as if I heard the music of an old song I had known all my life. I could not answer him. Faintness stole over me and a strange trembling sweetness held me in thrall. My heart glowed like a red-hot coal with a cool wind blowing on it.
“Deirdre!—what a name for a man’s wife. Deirdre, I love you! I want your heart and body and soul. Look at me, darling.”
I turned to him, and our eyes met in a long glance. Then mine fell as always before his, as if weighted with little heavy stones.
“Give me your soul, Deirdre,” he said, and with my eyes still closed, unhesitatingly, unswervingly, I put out my two hands and laid them in his with all my heart and soul in them; and he kissed them, and my hair, and my lips. He took me in his arms and kissed my eyes.