She was heart-dead to him yet, from the wound that Philip had dealt her, but at the touch of his lips a feeling of horror seemed to cramp all her limbs. With a shudder she crept down in the bed and hid her face, hating herself, loathing herself, wishing herself dead.
He stood a moment by her side, crying like a big boy in his great happiness. “I don't know in the world what she sees in me to be so fond of me, but that's the way with the women always, God bless them!”
She did not lift her face, and he stepped quietly to the door. Half-way through he turned about and raised one arm over his head. “God's rest and God's peace be with you, and may the man that gets you keep a clane heart and a clane hand, and be fit for the good woman he's won for his wife.”
At the next minute he went tearing down the stairs, and the kitchen rang with his laughter.
XVI.
Fate scored one. Kate had been telling herself that Philip was tired of her, that he did not love her any longer, that having taken all he could take he desired to be done with her, that he was trying to forget her, and that she was a drag upon him, when suddenly she remembered the tholthan, and bethought herself for the first time of a possible contingency. Why had she not thought of it before? Why had he never thought of it? If it should come to pass! The prospect did not appal her; it did not overwhelm her with confusion or oppress her with shame; it did not threaten to fall like a thunderbolt; the thought of it came down like an angel's whisper.
She was not afraid. It was only an idea, only a possibility, only a dream of consequences, but at one bound it brought her so much nearer to Philip. It gave her a right to him. How dare he make her suffer so? She would not permit him to leave her. He was her husband, and he must cling to her, come what would. Across the void that had divided them a mysterious power drew them together. She was he, and he was she, and they were one, for—who knows?—who could say?—perhaps Nature herself had willed it.
Thus the first effect of the new thought upon Kate was frenzied exultation. She had only one thing to do now. She had only to go to Philip as Bathsheba went to David. True, she could not say what Bathsheba said. She had no certainty, but her case was no less strong. “Have you never thought of what may possibly occur?” This is what she would say now to Philip. And Philip would say to her, “Dearest, I have never thought of that. Where was my head that I never reflected?” Then, in spite of his plans, in spite of his pledge to Pete, in spite of the world, in spite of himself—yea, in spite of his own soul if it stood between them—he would cling to her; she was sure of it—she could swear to it—he could not resist.
“He will believe whatever I tell him,” she thought, and she would say, “Come to me, Philip; I am frightened.” In the torture of her palpitating heart she would have rejoiced at that moment if she could have been sure that she was in the position of what the world calls a shameful woman. With that for her claim she could see herself going to Philip and telling him, her head on his breast, whispering sweetly the great secret—the wondrous news. And then the joy, the rapture, the long kiss of love! “Mine, mine, mine! he is mine at last!”