"Coira!" he cried with a sudden sharpness. "Coira, I won't have it! Am I going to lose you ... like this? Am I going to lose you after all ... now that we know?" He put up his hand once more—a weak and uncertain hand. It touched the girl's warm cheek and a sudden violent shiver wrung the man on the couch. His eyes sharpened and stared with something like fear.
"Real!" he cried, whispering. "Real? ... Not a dream?"
"Oh, very real, my Bayard!" said she. A thought came to her and she drew away from the couch, and sat back upon her heels, looking at the man with grave and sombre eyes. In that moment she fought within herself a battle of right and wrong.
"He doesn't remember," she said. "He doesn't know. He is like a little child. He knows nothing but that we two—are here together. Nothing else. Nothing!"
His state was plain to see. He dwelt still in that vague borderland between worlds. He had brought with him no memories, and no memories followed him save those her face had wakened. Within the girl a great and tender passion of love fought for possession of this little hour.
"It will be all I shall ever have!" she cried piteously. "And it cannot harm him. He won't remember it when he comes to his senses. He'll sleep again and—forget. He'll go back to her and never know. And I shall never even see him again. Why can't I have my little sweet hour?"
Once more the man cried her name, and she knelt forward and bent above him.
"Oh, at last, Coira!" said he. "After so long! ... And I thought it was another dream."
"Do you dream of me, Bayard?" she asked. And he said—
"From the very first. From that evening in the Champs Elysées. Your eyes, they've haunted me from the very first.