She put out her hand and seized his own with a slight gash across the knuckles—a gash from which a little of the blood flowed over her white fingers and marked them with a bright stain.
That handclasp finished what the spring sunshine of the morning had begun. She stood there, swaying a little, her lithe body still immature; the electric light from overhead falling directly upon her blue-black hair and level brows; her damp red lips parted; her face white, but warm and dusky, and her great dark eyes wide, half-terrified, seeing things they had never seen before.
Von Klausen's boyish face glowed. His blue gaze sparkled as if with electric fire. His wounded hand closed about her fingers.
The circuit was complete.
"I love you!" he whispered, and he took her in his arms.
From somewhere, somewhere that seemed far, far away, Muriel heard a voice that answered him and knew that it was her own voice:
"I love you!"
She clung to him; she held him fast. She knew. It was a knowledge beyond reason. There was no need to reason why these things should be so, when they were. She was aware only that in the kisses falling upon her lips, in the hands holding her tight, in the heart pounding against her breast there was a power that she missed in Stainton: a power that answered to the force in her own true being.
"But—but it can't be! It can't be!" she sobbed.
Von Klausen kissed her again: the long, long kiss of youth and love.