He was gone. The door closed slowly, noiselessly, upon his exit. There was no sound of departing feet.
But Merryon neither listened nor cared. He had turned Puck's deathly face upwards, and was covering it with burning, passionate kisses, drawing her back to life, as it were, by the fiery intensity of his worship.
CHAPTER IX
GREATER THAN DEATH
She came to life, weakly gasping. She opened her eyes upon him with the old, unwavering adoration in their depths. And then before his burning look hers sank. She hid her face against him with an inarticulate sound more anguished than any weeping.
The savagery went out of his hold. He drew her to the charpoy on which she had spent so many evenings waiting for him, and made her sit down.
She did not cling to him any longer; she only covered her face so that he should not see it, huddling herself together in a piteous heap, her black, curly head bowed over her knees in an overwhelming agony of humiliation.
Yet there was in the situation something that was curiously reminiscent of that night when she had leapt from the burning stage into the safety of his arms. Now, as then, she was utterly dependent upon the charity of his soul.
He turned from her and poured brandy and water into a glass. He came back and knelt beside her.