"I do, I do. Never say those things to me again, never leave me like that."
Dazzled, incredulous, he swept her to him, almost rough in his unbearable doubt and joy.
"And John? What of John?"
"You knew—"
"Knew? Child, you betrayed yourself the first time you spoke of him, the first time I saw you together. Why should I blame you for no fault of yours? How could I blame him, who never even guessed your thought? I never wondered at your choice; only, give me the truth now."
"But I love you," she said. "Monsieur Allard; I never thought of him like that after our wedding-day. You were so calm, so strong, I just rested with you and found no room for any other. On the voyage from Spain, I imagined somehow that Monsieur Allard was you, that you had come secretly to meet me, and so I almost taught myself to care for him. No more than that it was."
Closer he held her, searching the face of rose-and-pearl with his splendid, lonely eyes.
"Love of mine, make no mistake. I want you; my dear, I have wanted you so bitterly long, and you have shrunk from me. You care now, Iría?"
"I have always cared, only I never knew until last year. Since then I have hidden from you because I feared you would see; because I never dreamed you cared."
With a tinkling crash the silver pin slipped from her hair, like a golden serpent the heavy coil unwound and fell over his arm, draping them both with rippling silk as he stooped to kiss her quivering lips.