"Do not go," she said again, in the deep, soft tone of her golden voice.
"I must."
He turned from her and went towards the door. Soft and swift she followed him, but he was in the entry before her hand was on his arm. It was almost dusk out there. He stopped.
"I cannot go back to him," she said, and he could see the light in her eyes, and very faintly the red bar across the face he loved.
"You should—there is nowhere else for you to go," he said, and in the dark his hand was finding the bolt of the door to the stairs.
"No—there is nowhere else—I cannot go back to him," she answered, and the voice quavered uncertainly as the night breeze sighing amongst reeds.
"You must—you must," he tried to say.
Her weight was all upon his arm, but it was nothing to him. He steadily drew back the bolt. He turned up his face so that he could not see her.
With sudden strength her white hands went round his sinewy dark throat as he threw back his head.
"You are all I have in the world!" she half said, half whispered. "I will not let you go!"