“Even for my sake you might be generous. It is——”
Three strides brought me to her, and I was unconscious of the power in my angry grip on her wrist, but her tongue went silent. She raised her eyes under the compulsion of mine.
“That is enough,” I said.
There was a moment’s matching of our forces. A ripple of mischievous and innocent surprise animated her, and she laughed with the glee of a gentle child. She was very much like her sister then.
A deepening thunder-crash came.
“You must go—now! I’m going with you. I won’t let you——”
“You shall not go,” I firmly said.
“I must. I want to. I’ll get a——”
“No, Lentala. Good-night.”
As I was turning away, I saw the second time in her face the look of one whose road has stopped at a wall. When I smiled and bowed to her as Christopher and I were passing out, she was standing where I left her, looking blankly at me.