The words hurt cruelly. Could I never obliterate that wretched memory? It was vivid with her; it clung to me. It seemed a shadow dogging my present pleasure. I stopped suddenly on the staircase and took her wholly into my arms. All the supple form yielded at my touch, till it leaned hard against my own; the face, pallid with excitement, was raised to mine; the glitter of her eyes swam before my vision as I caught it from beneath the half-drooped lids; the lips, parted in a faint breath, then closed as mine joined them. As they touched, no consciousness was left except that both our lives seemed mingling, panting, fainting on our lips.
The pain that is pleasure, and the pleasure that is pain, thrilled and pierced every nerve as I held her and felt those lips under mine, her heart beat under my heart, her weak arms twisted round my throat. When at last my lips set hers free, on fire with the passion of my own, they moved in a half-delirious murmur,—
"Victor, you don't know how I love you!"
I have no distinct recollection of passing up the remaining stairs, but we did reach the landing, and a second or two later were standing in the drawing-room. I think she said it was pretty, and so on, but I hardly heard, my head was reeling, and all my senses dull, her figure leant a little against me, and the pressure of her arm was upon mine. After the drawing-room, the reading-room, and a breakfast-room, all opening from the same corridor, had been passed through, there were still two rooms unexplored on that floor. I turned the handle of the nearer door, and then pushed it open.
Lucia stepped on to the threshold, and then I felt her arm start violently in mine, and she drew back with a sharp, instinctive movement.
I looked down upon her and murmured,—
"Our room, dearest."
The colour blazed all over the fair skin, till it seemed scorching it, and tears startled into the dismayed eyes, which she turned from me confusedly, as she shrank back into the passage.
I was startled, and a chill seemed to fall upon me, and penetrate deeper as a grey pallor succeeded to the burning flush, and she had to lay one trembling hand on my arm again for actual support.
"Victor, it is nothing!" she said, hurriedly, forcing a smile to her lips.