She paused and gazed at him helplessly, laying her hand upon her brow.
“You ought not to have been alone,” he said, earnestly. “But tell me—you were not thinking of that—”
He pointed with a shudder to the sea that whispered and hissed below where they stood.
“I don’t know,” she sighed, still in the same dazed way. “I came, and it seemed to draw me towards it. I am so weary—so tired out.”
He caught her in his arms, and held her head down upon his shoulder, as he whispered in a voice deep with emotion:
“Weary, my poor girl, weary indeed. Now rest there, and, heaven helping me, half your trouble shall pass away. For I love you, Claire, love you with all my heart, and I too have suffered more than I can tell.”
She made no resistance to his embrace, but sighed deeply, as if he was giving her the support she needed in her time of weakness; but his heart sank within him as he felt how helpless and dazed she was. She yielded to him, but it was not the yielding of one who loved, neither was there a suggestion of caress in her words. He knew that she was half distraught with the suffering that had fallen to her lot; and holding her more tightly for a moment, he pressed his lips once reverently on her forehead, and then drew her arm through his.
“I will take you back,” he said.
She looked up at him, and a pang shot through his breast as he realised how weak she had become.
“Yes,” she said at last, “you will take me back.”