Under the influence of that close, passionate embrace, those clinging kisses and mingling tears, there began to come over Philip a feeling of weakness, of fainting courage, a disposition to cry out, “Nothing can be so terrible as this. I will not bear it; I will not go.” By a tyrannical effort of will, against which his whole nature cried out, he unwound her arms from his neck and said in a choked voice:—
“Darling, this is harder than any battle I shall have to fight, but this is what I enlisted for. I must go.”
He had reached the door of the summer-house, not daring for honor's sake to look back, when a heartbroken cry smote his ear.
“You have n't kissed me good-by!”
He had kissed her a hundred times, but these kisses she apparently distinguished from the good-by kiss. He came back, and taking her again in his embrace, kissed her lips, her throat, her bosom, and then once more their lips met, and in that kiss of parting which plucks the heart up by the roots.
How strong must be the barrier between one soul and another that they do not utterly merge in moments like that, turning the agony of parting to the bliss of blended being!
Pursued by the sound of her desolate sobbing, he fled away.
The stable-boy held the dancing horse at the gate, and Mr. Morton and his sister stood waiting there.
“Good-by, Phil, till we see you again,” said Miss Morton, kissing him tenderly. “We 'll take good care of her for you.”
“Will you please go to her now?” he said huskily. “She is in the summer-house. For God's sake try to comfort her.”