He lingered a moment hesitatingly, and then went up the stairs himself, his feet pausing half-reluctantly on the steps. Thrice he halted, and then went on again into the room where she was a kneeling figure by the bed, her arms spread out upon it, and her hair falling over her shoulders. She raised her head momentarily with a backward glance of rapt joy at him before burying it again in the coverlet, and as his footfalls stopped on the threshold she held out one arm appealingly as if to encircle him beside her.
“No—no!” he said painfully. “No, Annie! I—I can’t—it wouldn’t be right. Annie, you don’t want me, dear; you don’t want—— No!”
Her white hand still mutely pleaded. Even at the very gate of heaven she could not be satisfied without him. He drew nearer, and a little nearer. Then, somehow, he had stumbled down awkwardly into the warm enclosure of her arm, and hid his face within her bosom.