“What has brought you?” was her hurried question, when the library door was closed behind them. “Has anything happened?”
“Nothing,” Kingcote answered, turning his eyes from her. “But I see you have no time to give me. I mustn’t keep you now. I thought perhaps I might find you alone.”
“And you have come——?”
“To see you—to see you—what else?” burst passionately from his lips. “I was dying with desire to see you. Last night it grew more than I could bear. I left the house before daylight, and I find myself here. I had no purpose of coming; I have done it all in a dream. My life had grown to a passion to see you!”
He caught her hand and kissed it again and again, kissed the sleeve of her garments, pressed her palm against his eyes.
“You have made me mad, Isabel,” he whispered. “It is terrible not to be able to see you when that agony comes upon me. I neither rest nor employ myself; I can only pace my room, like an animal in his cage, with my heart on fire. Oh, I suffer—life is intolerable!”
“Bernard, let me go to that chair—to see you gave me a shock. For heaven’s sake do speak less wildly, dear! Why should you suffer so? Have I not written to you often? Do you doubt me? What is it that distresses you?”
He stood, and still held her hand.
“Don’t speak, but look at me very gently, softly, with all the assurance of tenderness that your eyes will utter. You have such power over me, that your gaze will soothe and make me a reasonable being again. No, not your lips! Only that still, smiling look, that I may worship you.”
Her bosom trembled.