She clung to him desperately, to his caress, the one sure symbol of his purity——
“I love you, Cyril,” she murmured, “I can’t help it. I’ve tried not to. But you couldn’t kiss me like this, reverently, if you did not love me well enough to forget everything else. Say you do, dear.”
“I love you,” he whispered again. “But you must not stay here. You must——”
“Doesn’t it mean something to you that I came,” she went on breathlessly, “that I could forget—what happened—that the love that was in my heart for you was greater than my hatred of what you are? I came so that you could know it by the difficulty, the danger that I ran. I don’t care what others may think of me. The only thing that matters is to have you again. You don’t know what it cost me to come. I am not the kind to be held so lightly, Cyril. I have forgotten my pride, even my sense of what is fitting for a girl to do, in the hope that you will listen to me.”
“Yes,” he murmured, “but not now, Doris. You must go back.”
“Not yet——” she protested.
“I—I have much to do——” he said.
“That messenger—O Cyril—you mustn’t. Come back with me—tonight—now——”
“I can’t,” he muttered. “It—it is important for me to stay here——”
She loosened his arms and stood away from him, peering down into the cove where clouds of black smoke were belching from the funnels of the black vessel. The water of the cove was churning in its wake and its prow was turning toward the harbor mouth.