ding and held up the hands
of horror.

"What are you going to do now?" she catechised, facing him in the middle
of the room. A long tendril of her beautiful corn-silk hair fell across
her eyes; her red lips parted in a faint wistful smile; beneath the
draperies of her loose gown the pure slender lines of her figure leaned
toward him.

"I am going back," he replied patiently.

"I knew you would come," said she. "I have been expecting you."

She raised one hand to brush back the tendril of hair, but it was a
mechanical gesture, one that did not stir even the surface consciousness
of the strange half-smiling, half-wistful, starry gaze with which she
watched his face.

"Oh, Harry," she breathed, with a sudden flash of insight, "you are a
man born to be much misunderstood."

He held himself rigid, but in his veins was creeping a molten fire, and
the fire was beginning to glow dully in his eye. Her whole being called
him. His heart leaped, his breath came fast, his eyes swam. With almost
hypnotic fascination the idea obsessed him--to kiss her lips, to press
the soft body of the young girl, to tumble her hair down about her
flower face. He had not come for this. He tried to steady himself,
and by an effort that left him weak he succeeded. Then a new flood of
passion overcame him. In the later desire was nothing of the old humble
adoration. It was elemental, real, almost a little savage. He wanted
to seize her so fiercely as to hurt her. Something caught his throat,
filled his lungs, weakened his knees. For a moment it seemed to him that
he was going to faint.

And still she stood there before him, saying nothing, leaning slightly
towards him, her red lips half parted, her eyes fixed almost wistfully
on his face.

"Go away!" he whispered hoarsely at last. The voice was not his own. "Go
away! Go away!"

Suddenly she swayed to him.

"Oh, Harry, Harry," she whispered, "must I TELL you? Don't you SEE?"

The flood broke through him. He seized her hungrily. He crushed her to
him until she gasped; he pressed his lips against hers until she all
but cried out with the pain of it, he ran his great brown hands blindly
through her hair until it came down about them both in a cloud of spun
light.

"Tell me!" he whispered. "Tell me!"

"Oh! Oh!" she cried. "Please! What is it?"

"I do not believe it," he murmured savagely.

She drew herself from him with gentle dignity.

"I am not worthy to say it," she said soberly, "bu