"You mustn't 'thou' me."
"Remove thy glove," he repeated.
Why I complied, I don't know, but I ripped off my glove, and he held my hand in both his hands and kissed it and kissed it.
"What right have you got to treat me like a woman unmindful of her duties?"
"I know that thou art lonesome, forlorn, Louise."
He struck at my heart as he spoke these words, and my eyes filled with tears. He pressed his warm, pulsating lips on the palm of my hand, covering it from wrist to finger-tips with wild kisses.
We were standing among the trees, and Lucretia, at a little distance, was plucking flowers. The remnant of common sense I mustered told me: "He is dishonoring you, repulse him," but his "I love thee, Louise," rang like music in my ears. However, I tore myself free at last. "Farewell, we must never meet again."
And then I lay in his arms, on his broad chest, and he covered my face with kisses, not passionate or insulting kisses. His lips touched lightly my eyes, my cheeks, my own lips—recompense for the long fast he had endured during all the months he had loved me at a distance.
Marvelous kisses kissed this man, pure kisses, lovely kisses, powerful kisses. And I thought the whole world was falling to pieces around me and I didn't care as long as only he and I were living. He himself freed me.