His arms were adoringly about her. His lips came close to hers. It was time, now, to give herself. She raised her lips.
They kissed.
But a great cry was in her heart: "I can't!" It was almost as though he had heard it, for he let her slip way; and she stood there before him, her head lowered, her hands desperately covering her face.
Louise thought blindly of Richard—what their first kiss had been like ...! And then she remembered how, afterward, she had longed for death. With what completeness the situation now was reversed! Now she was loved, and it was she who would break her lover's heart. Yet still the same swift longing for death....
They walked on slowly. Barry's head was lowered. Finally he asked thickly: "Don't you love me, then?"
She bent her head lower and could not answer. The fault was her own, and he must suffer for it. Yet stealthy colour crept back into her cheeks; her mood grew muddy and subtly defiant. Was not he making her suffer?
It wasn't, she blindly felt, so much that she didn't love him, as that, strangely and tragically, he must be all to her—and she could not face it.
How strange it was! How unpremeditated and utterly tragic! In his pocket huddling against the little box with its precious prisoner, was a letter in which the amplest and most ardent affection was expressed. It was a letter which expressed an earnest desire for his coming—so eager. Barry was bewildered. What did such lightning-swift changes of heart signify? Had she only imagined herself in love? What was this that had come to him? Had he come out of the desert for nothing after all? Was all the promise of new life sheer illusion?
They walked on a little way and then turned slowly back.