“No, no: don’t touch me,” he cried wildly. “You—innocent and sinned against—cannot take me by the hand again. Listen, Glynne, I must tell you before you go. It will be our secret, dear, for the confession to another, and my punishment, would mean fresh suffering and agony to you.”
“I—I do not understand you,” she faltered, as she looked at him wildly.
“No; it has been my secret until now. Glynne, dear, in my mad despair, I had gone to watch your window from the fir wood, as I had watched it scores of times before, and I said. ‘It is for the last time. To-morrow she belongs to him, and I will not degrade the idol of my love by thoughts that are not true.’ I reached the place sacred to me for my sorrow, but that night I could not rest there. It was as if something impelled me, against which I fought for hours before it mastered me, and as if by a strange magnetism—an evil planet attracted to a good—I was drawn nearer and nearer to the spot which contained all I held dear in life.”
A faint ejaculation, half wonder, half horror, escaped Glynne’s lips, and, with one quick movement she was close to his side, bending over him and gazing with wildly dilated eyes at the dimly-seen face upon the pillow, the faint smile upon his lips, as he referred to her in his astronomical simile, seeming almost repellent at such a time.
“I felt guilty, dear,” he went on, and she shivered while he turned his face a little toward the faint light of the window, and was silent for a few moments, while a fit of trembling came upon Glynne, and she had to catch at the bed and support herself.
“I was not master of myself, dear. I loved you, and in my madness, weak from my bitter struggle with the power which led me on, I stole like some guilty wretch across the park till I reached the garden, and there I once more paused to renew the fight—to master the desire to be near you for the last time and then go back.”
“Oh, Moray, Moray,” she cried, with a piteous moan, and she sank upon her knees, uttering low, hysterical sobs.
“My poor lost love!” he whispered faintly; and his hand was laid feebly upon her bent head, which sank lower at his touch. “It was in vain. I can hardly recall it dear, for I tell you I must have been mad, but I crept closer and closer till I was beneath your window, and could touch the long, rope-like stems that reached from where I stood praying for your happiness, and a wild and guilty joy thrilled me, for I touched the tendrils which clung around the chamber which held you, my love—my love!”
“Moray!” she cried wildly; and in ecstasy of horror, wonder, and confused thought mingled, she clasped her arms about his neck, and buried her burning face in his breast.
“Ah!” he sighed; and his trembling hands rose to press her head closer and closer to his fluttering heart.