CHAPTER XXII
"I am old and very tired, though to strangers I am young;
Life was just a sporting gamble, but for me the game is done;
It was worth it, and I'm scoffing now the reckoning has come;
That's the worst of too much loving—
Hurts like Hades when it's done."
FEATHERS' relief was so great that at first he could not speak, and she went on tremulously: "I've been here ever so long, walking up and down the road." She cast a timid glance behind her. "I saw you"—she went on almost whispering. "But I was afraid. I thought— oh, I thought so many dreadful things." He could see how she was trembling, and he took her hand into a warm clasp. "Oh, I am so glad to be with you," she said passionately.
He drew her into the parlor, closing the door. Though the evening was warm a fire burned in the old-fashioned open grate, its flames throwing fantastic shadows on walls and low ceiling.
Feathers put Marie into a chair, and stood beside her.
"There is nothing to be afraid of," he said gently. "You are quite safe with me"—but he looked away from her as he spoke, and the devil of desire rose again in his heart, turning his blood to fire, and forcing his pulse to racing speed. In that moment he fought the hardest battle of his life, as he stood there, her soft fingers clinging to his, in the intimacy of the firelit room, and with the silent country lying all around them outside.