The seven words numbered and registered themselves in his consciousness. He looked up at her and there was something endless in her beauty.
"You must not be hurt," she said tenderly. "It is the man in you that is wounded. You must know that you cannot really be wounded, unless I am wounded, too—and oh, a woman is not wounded by loving, by passion—that's why we are women. It was only the others I thought of. Believe me, all is well—"
"Would you have me go to-day—now—into the desert?" he asked.
"Wait," she answered. "I do not hear him. It would seem that he would be about—now that we hear him no longer—"
6
Romney arose, but did not follow her to the door. He watched her as she opened it, a breeze seeming to take it from her hands. He saw her hands lift quietly, tighten and press across her lips. She seemed to become less in height. She ran to him, and for the briefest instant touched her forehead to his breast—the queerest murmuring little cry from her throat. Something of the picture in the other room had come to him from her mind. They did not speak. He did not draw her closely, merely sustained her.
Romney saw it on the floor, the face flattened against the stone, the arms out. His hand went out to her and pressed upon her breast to keep the shock from rending her—as if she were carrying a child. The look of her face frightened him so that he drew her away; yet all the time he had the sense that the tragedy had somehow set them free.
"You will let me take care of him—come," he whispered.
She followed, obediently. He did not know the way to her room, but took her to the one he had used, pressed her to lie down. She covered her face in the pillow where he had lain. Romney feared she was not breathing and turned her face outward. There he knelt a moment. Her eyes were open, but did not seem to hold him. Moments passed and then he heard her words:
"You said you would go to him."