"You will have another," she said, the hope of all the world in her voice. "We all have our second chance."
"Not like that—not like those Highlanders—" he broke off and his hands came up swiftly to either side of the lifted, moon-lit face. He could have crushed it, white and radiant as it was, between his hands; he could have kissed and kissed and kissed it!
And then his hands came up slowly, and he held her face as gently as the Captain would have done.
"I am going to take you back to the house," he said, looking down at her. "You are shivering. I might have known you would take cold."
She shrank back, trembling from the dumb anguish in his eyes, and covered her own with her hands.
Why couldn't he have been with the Highlanders?
He drew one of her hands slowly down.
"Don't," he said; "Don't act so. Did I hurt you?"
She shook her head.
He raised the hand he held to his lips and he kissed it passionately, holding it close against his mouth for a moment, as though to seal the kiss there.