'Then live with me,' cried Norah. The spear seemed to crumple, to collapse, and turn to a girl crouched on her knees at her husband's feet, fumbling for his hand.
The fishing eagle flapped slowly and as if contemptuously into the gathering darkness.
I could not hear all that Norah said. Naturally I did not try. I wanted to leave them, but the battle was joined, not won; at any moment I might be called on.
From the scattered words that reached my ear, I knew that she was telling him how the kiss in the ruins was given and in what spirit it was accepted. She told him how in the hills she had come to see he cared, and how the knowledge had brought her back to her place at his side. If she could not give him passion—passion was trodden out of her, she said—she could give him affection, if he could accept it....
It was dark now and some one in the village behind us began listlessly to tap a drum. It covered Norah's voice. While she fought for Archie's life, did she hear, I wondered, another drum and see a swinging light that had guided another man to her and on, so quickly, to his death?
At last Archie spoke, and I heard his male tones above the drum.
'You've taken away the bitterness,' he said, 'the bitterness of believing ... that about you. You must forgive me for doubting....'
'And you have to forgive so much,' I heard her break in.
They sat in silence; in the light of the fire I could see his fingers tangling her tawny hair. The drummer had begun to play in earnest and the syncopated, staccato throb seemed to force the wall of the forest to yield a little to its urgency before closing behind it, like a thick velvet curtain. Archie spoke at last and I saw Norah draw in her breath. His words came to me in fragments.
He was glad, so glad she had told him, but it could not alter ... letter to Lavater somewhere at the Boma ... found sooner or later ... intolerable to wait on its chance discovery ... must see Lavater himself to-morrow.