"Betty, Betty, why do you say you love me?"
"Du 'ee not know, Allan, why I love 'ee?" she said. "Oh you du!" She put her hands against his breast, she looked up into his face, her eyes smiled at his, her lips invited. He bent to her, she could feel the heavy, the wild beating of his heart under her little hands, and there came to her a sense of joy, of triumph.
A cloud drifted across the moon, it blotted out for a moment that glowing, inviting little face. It was gone, leaving but an indistinct shape of whiteness.
His father! his wife!—his old father's pride in him, Kathleen's faith in him—Was he to prove himself unworthy? Was he to fall at this first temptation?
"Allan, my Allan!" she said, and her voice came to him, soft as a caress from out of the darkness. She had thought him won, had believed him hers, and she was waiting joyously, expectantly for the kiss, the kiss that never came.
"Allan, my son," he seemed to hear the old voice say, that proud and tender old voice. "Allan my husband!" Her voice now, calling him back to a sense of honour, to a sense of duty and right and he heard the voices, listened to them, heeded them. He pushed the girl away gently.
"Betty, we must go back to the house, child—they will miss me and wonder, you too, you may be wanted, you have dried your tears—go back, go back."
"Allan!" she said and her voice was like a cry of pain. He gripped her little hands and held them tightly, then he let them go.
"Go back!" he said, and his voice was harsh and stern, yet it was the voice of his better self—the conqueror!
CHAPTER XXVIII