"Assuredly, if I had the occasion and the opportunity."
"Which latter I would not be such a fool as to allow you."
"Opportunities come—are not made and given."
"You are a strange girl," he said; holding her hands by the bandaged knots at the wrists, and looking into her gloomy eyes; "I should be sorry to rouse the wild beast in you—there is one curled up in your heart—that I can see. Your eyes are the entrance to its lair."
"Yes," answered Urith, without shrinking, "it is true there is a wild beast in me."
"And you obey the wild beast. It stretched itself and sniffed the moor air—than away you ran out into the wilderness."
He continued to study her face; that exercised a strange fascination upon him.
"Yes; I was in one of my fits. I was angry, and when I am angry I have no reason—no thought—no feelings, nothing save anger. Just as the moor now is—all fire; and the fire consumes everything. I could not hurt my mother—I did not want to hurt my Uncle Solomon. That other—— He was beyond my reach, and so I bit myself."
Anthony made an attempt to shake himself free from the sensation that stole over his senses, a sensation of giddiness. The effort was ineffectual, it lacked resoluteness, and again the spell settled over him; he was falling into a dream, with his hands on her wrists, and her pulses throbbing against his fingers, a dream woven about him, enlacing, entangling mind and heart and consciousness; a dream in which he was losing all power of seeing anything save her eyes, of hearing anything save her breathing, of feeling anything save the dull throb of her pulse—a dream in which he was being caught and bound, and thrown powerless at her feet—a dream of mingled rapture and pain and undefined terror. She had called herself his captive a little while ago, and now she, without a word or a movement, was subjecting him absolutely.
How long he stood thus fascinated he could not conjecture, he was startled out of it by his horse jerking his bridle from under his foot, and then at once, as one starting out of a trance, he passed into a world of other sensations, he heard the rush of water and the wail of wind, he saw the fires about him, and Urith's eyes no longer filled the entire horizon.