Lauraine knows it is only paltering with temptation—only leaping up fresh misery for herself and him in time to come, but still she hesitates; she is only a woman, and she loves.
Alas! that instant's hesitation undoes all the better resolves she has been striving to make. A window is thrown open—voices sound—there comes an echo of footsteps—they are alone no longer.
Keith bends over her impulsively. "Say one word, Lauraine—only one. Say 'stay!'"
She draws her breath sharp and quick—his hand is on her own—she feels its strong, warm pressure, and all her good resolutions fly away. Nothing seems in her heart but one aching, passionate longing for his presence—his voice. Her face pales to the whiteness of death, but to his ear steals the word he has asked for—a whisper that seals their fate to-night—a whisper for which the future holds its own Nemesis of dread and of despair.
"Stay!" she says, and they pass out of the silver radiance of the night as they entered it—together.
CHAPTER IX
Keith Athelstone goes home that night to his rooms, and feels in his heart that he has been a coward.
He knows he has had no right to wring from a woman's weakness such a concession as that which he has won from Lauraine. She is not of the stuff that heroines are made of, and truly there is no "heroic" element about himself. It is a great mistake to fancy people are either very good or very bad in this world of ours. Only too often there is simply a mixture of both in their characters, and circumstances or strength of feeling alternately throw their weight into the balance.
But alone to-night with his own thoughts, and with the fever-pulse of passion dying slowly back into its natural beat, Keith remembers what has passed, and has the grace to feel a little ashamed of it, even though he declares to himself over and over again that he would act in just the same way under similar circumstances.