"Will you listen to me! Will you wait a moment! I am only trying to tell you that I love you, dear——"
He almost caught her, but she sprang aside, frightened, still retreating before him.
"I cannot go until you listen to me!—" he said thickly, trampling through the flowers to intercept her. "You've got to listen!—do you hear?"
She had almost reached the terrace; the shadowy veranda opened widely beyond.
"There are people here! Don't you understand?" she said once more in a choking voice; but he only advanced, and she fell back before him to the very edge of the porch lattice.
"Now listen to me!" he said between his teeth. "I love you and I'll never give you up——"
Suddenly she turned on him, hands tightly clenched:
"Be silent!" she whispered fiercely. "I tell you what you say is indecent, revolting! If there were a man here he'd kill you! Do you understand?"
At the same instant his eyes became fixed on a figure in white which took shadowy shape on the dark veranda, rising and coming slowly forward.
Ghostlike as it was he knew it instantly, stood rooted in his tracks while Strelsa stole away from him through the star-lit gloom, farther, farther, slipping forever from him now—he knew that as he stood there staring like a damned man upon that other dim shape in the darkness beyond.