e himself was distraught, for he did not
know what he would do--how far he would dare to trust himself. He was
always troubled when dealing with his physical passion, for it was a
raging lion at times. It seemed to overcome him quite as a drug might or
a soporific fume. He would mentally resolve to control himself, but
unless he instantly fled there was no hope, and he did not seem able to
run away. He would linger and parley, and in a few moments it was master
and he was following its behest blindly, desperately, to the point
almost of exposure and destruction.

Tonight when Angela came back he was cogitating, wondering what it might
mean. Should he? Would he marry her? Could he escape? They sat down to
talk, but presently he drew her to him. It was the old story--moment
after moment of increasing feeling. Presently she, from the excess of
longing and waiting was lost to all sense of consideration. And he--

"I shall have to go away, Eugene," she pleaded, when he carried her
recklessly into his room, "if anything happens. I cannot stay here."

"Don't talk," he said. "You can come to me."

"You mean it, Eugene, surely?" she begged.

"As sure as I'm holding you here," he replied.

At midnight Angela lifted frightened, wondering, doubting eyes, feeling
herself the most depraved creature. Two pictures were in her mind
alternately and with pendulum-like reiteration. One was a composite of a
marriage altar and a charming New York studio with friends coming in to
see them much as he had often described to her. The other was of the
still blue waters of Okoonee with herself lying there pale and still.
Yes, she would die if he did not marry her now. Life would not be worth
while. She would not force him. She would slip out some night when it
was too late and all hope had been abandoned--when exposure was
near--and the next day they would find her.

Little Marietta how she would cry. And old Jotham--she could see him,
but he would never be really sure of the truth. And her mother. "Oh God
in heaven," she thought, "how hard life is! How terrible it can be."

CHAPTER XXVII

The atmosphere of the house after this night seemed charged with
reproach to Eugene, although it took on no semblance of reality in
either look or word. When he awoke in the morning and looked through the
half closed shutters to the green world outside he felt a sense of
freshness and of shame. It was cruel to come into such a home as this
and