I
am going on Tuesday.'
She sobbed despairingly, and clung to him, her lips pressed convulsively
to his.
'Don't let me see the light of another day--kill me!' she moaned.
Then, catching sight of his discomposed face, 'You are suffering?' she
exclaimed. 'You too--you think we shall never meet again?'
He had almost insuperable difficulty in speaking, in answering her. His
tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, the words failed him. He had an
instinctive desire to hide his face from those observant eyes, to avoid
her questions at all cost. He was neither capable of consoling her nor
of practising fresh deceptions.
'Hush!' he whispered in a choking, almost irrecognisable voice.
Crouching at her feet, he laid his head in her lap and remained like
that for a long time without speaking, while she laid her tender hands
upon his temples and felt the wild, irregular beating of his arteries.
She realised that he was suffering fiercely, and in his pain forgot all
thought of her own, grieving now only for his grief--only for him.
Presently he rose, and clasped her with such mad vehemence to him that
she was frightened.
'What has come to you! What is it?' she cried, trying to look in his
eyes, to discover the reason of his sudden frenzy. But he only buried
his face deeper in her bosom, her neck, her hair--anywhere out of sight.
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