"You are not bad," says Lauraine gently. "And I am sure you won't threaten me with the worse misery of your recklessness as once before you did. The nobler and better your life, the less will be my suffering. And you won't be cruel enough to add to that, will you?"
The pleading voice, the tearful eyes, unman him. "Why don't you abuse me, condemn me, call me the selfish brute I am?" he says, with that rapid contrition that so often marks his wildest moods. "No, Lorry, I won't be 'bad' if I can help it. I wouldn't wish to add to your suffering, though I am so selfish. Let me go now, while I have strength, while the good fit is on me. It mayn't last, you know, and then——"
He is standing facing her, and white as death she looks up and meets the mournful gaze of the "bad blue eyes." There is no badness in them now, only a great anguish and a great despair. One long, long look they give—a look that seems to read her heart, and all its love that she denies, and all its suffering that he has given. He takes her hands and draws her near, nearer. She trembles like a leaf. Her eyelids droop, her lips quiver.
"May I—kiss you?" he whispers.
She makes no answer in words, for speech is beyond her. She forgets everything now, save that she loves, and that this is an eternal farewell to her lover.
There comes such a moment of forgetfulness to all women who love, otherwise, indeed, there would be none to fall for love's sake only. Otherwise, how easy would be the conflict that, of all others is the wildest, the fiercest, and hardest to wage.
She lifts her head. The anguish, the entreaty in her eyes frighten, and yet gladden him. For in this moment he feels he is master of her fate, and she is unconscious of the fact. Did he but hold her in his arms—did the tide of passion, locked back within his throbbing heart, find vent in one word, one caress, he knows he could not answer for himself—for her!
It is the critical moment of Keith Athelstone's life. All that is best and worst in his heart are at war; all that is most hard to resist wraps him in a flame of tempting that burns away all good resolves, and almost stifles the faint whispers of a conscience that pleads for her.
For her—for her. To save her from herself as well as from his own mad love. To leave her unharmed, untainted by the baseness of his selfish passion; to be worthy of love, as love had been in those sweet, glad, childish days. These thoughts flash like lightning through his brain, even as he meets her mournful eyes, and reads their unconscious betrayal.
"Oh, love, good-bye! Let me go!" he cries wildly, and throws her hands aside with almost cruel force.