Then, in the next breath, he murmured:
"I must beat a quiet retreat. How frightened and angry she would be, were she to awake and find me here!"
He was one of the purest and most honorable minded men in the world.
He turned to go, but could not tear his fascinated eyes from that beautiful, child-like, sleeping face.
His splendid black eyes lingered on its innocent beauty in passionate admiration.
"If I might only touch that little hand that lies so near me on the pillow, it would cool the thirst of my heart," he said wistfully to himself, while his heart beat fast with joy that he had found her again, this lovely creature of whom he had dreamed night and day for twenty-four hours.
He looked at the sweetly-smiling, parted lips, and his pulses thrilled at the remembrance of the tender caress he had pressed upon them such a short while before.
Carried away by the force of as pure and mad a passion as ever thrilled the heart of man, the enraptured lover bent his head and pressed a kiss as soft and light as the fall of a rose-leaf on the white hand that lay so temptingly near him.
He meant to go then, but as he lifted his head, blushing with shame at the temptation that had prompted him to that wrongful and stolen caress, a sharp indignant voice fell on his ears with the suddenness of a thunder-clap.
"Oh, you black-hearted wilyun—you wicked betrayer of innercence! Get out o' this afore I kill you with my own hands, you han'some debbil!"