He was only telling her good-by. He knew not how hard he pressed upon those tender hands; he only knew he might never clasp them in his own again. It was a terrible moment—terrible not alone for Mell.
One would have thought, seeing how he suffered in giving her up, that she was the last woman in the world; whereas, we know there are multitudes of them, many more estimable in character, some equally desirable in person, with just such wondrous hair, just such enchanting eyes, just such shapeliness of construction, enough in itself to inspire mankind with the most passionate love—plenty of her kind, but none exactly Mell!
Sensible of that detaining clasp; knowing his keen eyes scanned darkly and hungrily every quivering feature in her unquiet face; hearing his labored breath and the low sobs wrung from a strong man’s agony, Mell felt first as a guilty culprit.
If only he would stab her to the heart, and then himself.
We little thought, any of us, when we saw him lying in the meadow on the grass at her feet, that out of the joyous inspiration of that glorious 317 summer weather, out of two young lives so beautiful, out of young love, a thing so full of poetry and romance, would come such wretchedness as this.
After a little while, the touch of those rose-leaf palms, the whiteness of her face, the appeal for mercy in those eyes seeking his own, had a soothing effect upon Jerome. He would now put forth all his strength and quietly say good-by.
Softly he pressed to his lips one of those imprisoned hands; softly, in a heart-sick rapture of despairing renunciation, he was about to do the same with the other, when the glint of Rube’s solitaire, the pledge of her hated bondage to another, the glaring witness of her treachery towards himself, flashed into his eyes and overcame all his good resolutions. With a look of unutterable reproach, with a gesture of undying contempt, he tossed the offending hand back upon her lap.
“Think not,” he broke forth, in vehement utterance, “that no thought of me will embitter your bridal joys! I leave you to your fate! I go to my own! Dark it may be, but not darker than yours!”
And this was the quiet way in which he bade her good-by.
The words pierced Mell to the very soul, and, combined with the blackness of his countenance, filled her with indefinable, but very horrible imaginings. He had almost reached the door, when with a smothered cry of pain, she followed him.