Forbes did not hear her. He was thinking only of the foster-father he had lost. He mumbled, with dark dejection:
"I'm alone now—alone!"
But Persis' face was overswept with a shaft of light. Glancing over her shoulder, and seeing that no one was near their door, she moved closer to Forbes, laid her other hand on his, and spoke with all meekness and with a questioning appeal.
"Not alone, Harvey? I'm here."
He opened his clenched eyes a little and met her upward gaze. He closed his eyes again against her. She waited. Only a moment, and then with a sudden frenzy he gripped her in a mad embrace and smote her lips with his. She closed her eyes in ecstasy.
Immediately he started back from her in horror, groaning: "What am I thinking? And he's just dead!"
"He's dead, but I live!" She meant only to soothe him, but through her low voice an exultance broke like a bugle of triumph, and she whispered again: "I live! I live!"
So the eyes of Jael must have widened when she had driven the nail through the temples of Sisera.
In her victory she remembered discretion and glided aside from Forbes just before Willie entered the room with a servant carrying Persis' furs.
"Come along, Persis," Willie complained; "we can't stay here all night."