The man stared at her, amazed. Such fierce surges of joy throbbed through him as he had not thought the human frame could sustain. This woman loved him, in some strange way he had gained her affection. It was impossible, yet she had said so! He had been a blind fool. He could see that now. She stood before him and smiled up at him, looking at him through eyes misted with tears, with lips parted, with color coming and going in her cheek and with her bosom rising and falling. She loved him, he had but to step nearer to her to take her in his arms. There was trust, devotion, surrender, everything, in her attitude and between them, like that great gulf which lay between the rich man and the beggar, that separated heaven and hell, was that he could not cross.
"I never dreamed, I never hoped—oh," he exclaimed as if he had got his death wound, "this cannot be borne."
He turned away, but in two swift steps she caught him.
"Where do you go?"
"Out, out into the night."
"You cannot go now, it is dark; hark to the storm, you will miss your footing; you would fall, you would freeze, you would die."
"What matters that?"
"I cannot have it."
"It would be better so."
He strove again to wrench himself away, but she would not be denied. She clung to him tenaciously.