“Neither do you,” she retorted.
“Oh yes, I do—at least, the case is different with me; my work is here. It hurts me to think of going back to the hills, leaving you here in the midst of these wolves.”
He was talking now in the low, throbbing utterance of a man carried out of himself. “It angers me to think that the worst of these loafers, these drunken beasts, can glare at you—can speak to you. They have no right to breathe the same air with one like you.”
She did not smile at this; his voice, his eyes were filled with the gravity of the lover whose passion is not humorous. Against his training, his judgment, he was being drawn into closer and closer union with this daughter of violence, and he added: “You may not see me in the morning.”
“You must not go without seeing my mother. You must have your breakfast with us. It hurt us to think you didn’t come to us for supper.”
Her words meant little, but the look in her eyes, the music in her voice, made him shiver. He stammered: “I—I must return to my duties to-morrow. I should go back to-night.”
“You mustn’t do that. You can’t do that. You are to appear before the judge.”
He smiled. “That is true. I’d forgotten that.”
Radiant with relief, she extended her hand. “Good-night, then. You must sleep.”
He took her hand and drew her toward him, then perceiving both wonder and fear in her eyes, he conquered himself. “Good-night,” he repeated, dropping her hand, but his voice was husky with its passion.