"Oh, promise me that some day you and I——"
There was a moved silence through the room; his voice had a quality that reached for the heart:
"Those first sweet violets of early spring——"
Dillon glanced at the woman; her large, dark eyes were brimmed with tears. A great pity surged over him: he would have given anything he owned to be able to offer her her life to live again. Tenderly, as over a dusty, broken bird, he laid his hand over her clasped ones on the table. They sat in awed silence; the song swelled on. He did not hear the door open behind him, nor turn as a new party of four entered quietly. Directly behind his chair a man's voice spoke softly.
"This is a fair sample. Not very bad, you think? But every man in this room is a confirmed opium-eater, and the women——"
The two at the table hardly heard.
"Oh, the women!" said a woman's voice in a rough whisper. "I cannot bear to think——"
"Oh, it isn't the women, Aunty! You sha'n't say that—they are heart-breaking. It's the men, the men I bl——"
Swiftly, hopelessly, as the steel turns to the magnet, Dillon turned and faced Helena Huntington.
As her eyes met his all the rose colour in her soft cheeks seemed to sweep into his and burn dully there, leaving her whiter than bone. For one fiery second her eyes rested on the table, the half-emptied glasses, the clasped hands of the pair, the tear-stained cheeks of the handsome girl. For one breath two groups of stone confronted each other. Then, with no sign of recognition, she swept from her seat, her hand on the rector's arm, her aunt and an older man behind them. Her aunt looked at Dillon as if he were the chair he sat in.