“I see. When do you go?”
Of a sudden her strong young arms were about his shoulders; her hot, sweet face was pressed against his. He felt the quick throbbing of the vein in her temple, and was shaken to the foundations of his being with the dear and bewildering shock of it.
“Oh, Jem!” Her whisper fluttered close to his ear. “Why do you let me go! Never let me go. It breaks my heart to go. To leave you. Never to see you again. Why must I go!”
“You mustn’t. You shan’t. Marcia, darling! After this you can’t leave me.”
He lifted her head to press his lips upon her eyes. They were hot and dry. But when he sought her mouth, her quick hand interposed. As abruptly as she had come into his arms she escaped their jealous clasp and stood back from him.
“How could I!” she panted. “It was unfair of me. I never meant it.”
“You can’t tell me that—now,” he answered, with a new note of joy and triumph.
“It was wrong—so wrong,” she mourned. “It did not mean what—what you hoped. For I must go.”
“Go?” he repeated incredulously. “And not come back?”
“Oh, want me to come back, Jem!” she pleaded. “Keep wanting me to come back. If anything could ever bring me, that would. But it will not. Nothing can. I know it. I am holding to a dream.”