“Mother, I am happy; so happy that I do not want to die; I want to live forever!”
Margot eyed her narrowly. “What has changed your mind?”
“I was walking in the garden,” rejoined Gabrielle, “and the god of love was there. He kissed me on my mouth, Mother; and oh, Mother, love is sweet!”
Margot’s heart stopped beating. “Are you quite mad?” she said.
Then the truth dawned upon her. She lost all sense of balance in the crossed tides of dismay. She strained her daughter to her heart, then thrust her away; dropped speech unuttered; gave a choked cry of despair, while her face went gray as ashes.
She clutched Gabrielle by the arms, steadying herself, for she could scarcely have stood alone. She blinked like a person purblind, and peered into the girl’s wondering eyes. The lines of her face became furrows. “Oh, my God!” she whispered, “I should have known! I should have known!”
Margot cowered as if to avoid a blow; her eyes dilated; yet she seemed incapable of seeing; her mouth fell open, she seemed to scream, yet made no sound but that of the whistling breath through her nostrils, as one who sustains the torture of the rack.
She thrust Gabrielle from her. “Go!” she gasped, and struck herself on head and breast, crying out, “Mother of God! I should have known! Fool, fool, fool!” Then, as if stunned, her head fell down upon her breast.
In the dark and breathless stillness of the night there was a stern, strange loveliness; and now something akin to terror, the terror of a child that dreams, and, waking in the darkness, cries out from dread of unknown things.