"Don't," she said. "I can't bear it."
And they were silent again.
Their silence was more real to them than the sounding storm. There was danger in it. It drew them back and back. It was poignant and reminiscent. It came to them like the long stillness before their passion. They had waited here before, like this, through moments tense and increasing, for the supreme, toppling instant of their joy.
Their minds went round and round, looking for words to break the silence and finding none. They were held there by their danger.
At last Anne spoke.
"Do you think it's over?"
"No. It's only just begun."
The rain hurled itself against the window, as if it would pluck them out into the storm. It brimmed over from the roof like water poured out from a bucket.
"We'll have to sit tight till it stops," he said.
Silence again, long, inveterate, dangerous. Every now and then Anne coughed, the short, hard cough that hurt and frightened him. He knew he ought to leave her; every minute increased their danger. But he couldn't go. He felt that, after all they might have done and hadn't done, heaven had some scheme of compensation in which it owed them this moment.