An overwhelming rush of exultation at having delivered the man she revered from one of the most terrible forms of death, shook the gentle girl to the centre of her soul. It merged in a defiance of duty to Stephen, and a total recklessness as to plighted faith. Every nerve of her will was now in entire subjection to her feeling—volition as a guiding power had forsaken her. To remain passive, as she remained now, encircled by his arms, was a sufficiently complete result—a glorious crown to all the years of her life. Perhaps he was only grateful, and did not love her. No matter: it was infinitely more to be even the slave of the greater than the queen of the less. Some such sensation as this, though it was not recognized as a finished thought, raced along the impressionable soul of Elfride.
Regarding their attitude, it was impossible for two persons to go nearer to a kiss than went Knight and Elfride during those minutes of impulsive embrace in the pelting rain. Yet they did not kiss. Knight’s peculiarity of nature was such that it would not allow him to take advantage of the unguarded and passionate avowal she had tacitly made.
Elfride recovered herself, and gently struggled to be free.
He reluctantly relinquished her, and then surveyed her from crown to toe. She seemed as small as an infant. He perceived whence she had obtained the rope.
“Elfride, my Elfride!” he exclaimed in gratified amazement.
“I must leave you now,” she said, her face doubling its red, with an expression between gladness and shame “You follow me, but at some distance.”
“The rain and wind pierce you through; the chill will kill you. God bless you for such devotion! Take my coat and put it on.”
“No; I shall get warm running.”
Elfride had absolutely nothing between her and the weather but her exterior robe or “costume.” The door had been made upon a woman’s wit, and it had found its way out. Behind the bank, whilst Knight reclined upon the dizzy slope waiting for death, she had taken off her whole clothing, and replaced only her outer bodice and skirt. Every thread of the remainder lay upon the ground in the form of a woollen and cotton rope.
“I am used to being wet through,” she added. “I have been drenched on Pansy dozens of times. Good-bye till we meet, clothed and in our right minds, by the fireside at home!”