She seemed unable to speak, and he took both her hands and looked anxiously into her lovely, pallid features.
After a moment she turned her head and buried her face in the pillow, trembling now in overwhelming realization of what she had endured for the sake of two cakes of sugar-milk chocolate hidden under a bush in the forest.
* * * * *
For a long while the girl lay there, the feverish flush of tears on her partly hidden face, her nervous hands tremulous, restless, now seeking his, convulsively, now striving to escape his clasp — eloquent, uncertain little hands that seemed to tell so much and yet were telling him nothing he could understand.
"Eve, dear," he said, "are you in pain? What is it that has happened to you? I thought you were all right. You seemed all right——"
"I am," she said in a smothered voice. "You'll stay here with me, won't you?"
"Of course I will. It's just the reaction. It's all over. You're relaxing. That's all, dear. You're safe. Nothing can harm you now——"
"Please don' leave me."
After a moment: "I won't leave you. … I wish I might never leave you."
In the tense silence that followed her trembling ceased. Then his heart, heavy, irregular, began beating so that the startled pulses in her body awoke, wildly responsive.