She drew back from him, looking about the room with unseeing eyes, her fingers plucking and tearing at the lace of her dress; her voice was faint and small, like the voice of a little child.
"I—I am afraid to be alone. Oh, I must never be alone again so long as I shall live. I think I should die."
"And you never shall be; never again. Ah, this is my birthday, too, sweetheart. I am born again to-night."
Laura clung to his arm; it was as though she were in the dark, surrounded by the vague terrors of her girlhood. "And you will always love me, love me, love me?" she whispered. "Sheldon, Sheldon, love me always, always, with all your heart and soul and strength."
Tears stood in Corthell's eyes as he answered:
"God forgive whoever—whatever has brought you to this pass," he said.
And, as if it were a realisation of his thought, there suddenly came to the ears of both the roll of wheels upon the asphalt under the carriage porch and the trampling of iron-shod hoofs.
"Is that your husband?" Corthell's quick eye took in Laura's disarranged coiffure, one black lock low upon her neck, the roses at her shoulder crushed and broken, and the bright spot on either cheek.
"Is that your husband?"
"My husband—I don't know." She looked up at him with unseeing eyes. "Where is my husband? I have no husband. You are letting me remember," she cried, in terror. "You are letting me remember. Ah, no, no, you don't love me! I hate you!"