"Never, never so long as I live!" The words muttered in his broken voice had all the solemnity of a marriage oath; and he kissed her, sealing the promise, while she lay passive in his arms.
Holding her thus to him, her head against his beating heart, he felt the helplessness, the dependence of the woman, and it filled him with a subdued, sad joy. His part was to protect her, to defend her always, and his grip tightened about her yielding form. Their lips met again, and this time the sensuous appeal of the woman entered his senses, clouding for the time his delicate vision, submerging that nobler feeling which hitherto alone she had roused. She was a woman,—his to desire, to have!
"What shall we do?" she asked, sitting down, still holding his hand.
"First we must get Delia. We had better telegraph your mother at once to meet us somewhere."
"Oh!"
"You must have Delia, of course. He will probably make trouble, try to get hold of the child, and so we must leave here as soon as possible, to-day if we can."
"Where shall we go?" she asked, bewildered.
"Somewhere—out of the country," he replied slowly, looking at her significantly. "Of course it would be better to wait and have the divorce; but he might fight that, and make a mess,—try to keep the child, you understand."
She was silent, and he thought she objected to his summary plan. But it was on her lips to say, 'Why not leave Delia with him until it can all be arranged?' Something in the young man's stern face restrained her; she was afraid of outraging instincts, delicacies that were strange to her.
"Should you mind," he asked pleadingly, "going without the divorce? Of course to me it is the same thing. You are mine now, as I look at it,—any marriage would mean little to either of us after—the past! Somehow to hang about here, with the danger of trouble to you, waiting for a divorce, with the row and all,—I can't see you going through it. I think the—other way—is better."