an afflicted child; the
motherly instinct was up in arms now, even fighting the womanly, the
passionate instinct of a less selfless love. She bent down and kissed
his forehead.

"Luke," she said gently, "it would do you such a lot of good if you
would only let yourself go."

He had contrived to get hold of her hands: those hands which he loved
so dearly, with their soft, rose-tinted palms and the scent of sweet
peas which clung to them. His own hot fingers closed on those small
hands. She stood before him, tall, elegant--not beautiful! Louisa
Harris had never been beautiful, nor yet a fairy princess of
romance--only a commonplace woman! A woman of the world, over whose
graceful form, her personality even, convention invariably threw her
mantle--but a woman for all that--with a passion burning beneath the
crust of worldly _sang-froid_--with heart attuned to feel every
quiver, every sensation of joy and of pain. A woman who loved with
every fibre in her--who had the supreme gift of merging self in
Love--of giving all, her soul, her heart, her mind and every
thought--a woman who roused every chord of passion in a man's
heart--the woman whom men adore!

And now as Luke de Mountford held her hands, and she stood close
beside him, her breath coming and going in quick gasps, with the
suppressed excitement of latent self-sacrifice, her eyes glowing and
tearless, he half slid from the chair on which he was sitting, and one
knee was on the ground, and his face turned up to hers.

He almost smiled, as she repeated, with a little sigh:

"If you would only let yourself go!"

"If I would let myself dwindle down to the level of drivelling fools,"
he said. "God knows, Lou, it would be easy enough now, when I hold
those lovely little hands of yours, and the scent of sweet peas which
comes from your dear self reminds me of summer, of old-fashioned
gardens of enduring peace. Lou! I dare not even kiss your hands, and
yet my whole body aches with the longing to press my lips on them. You
see how easily I drift into being a drivelling fool? Would to God I
could lie on the ground here before you, and feel the soles of your
feet on my neck. How lucky slaves were in olden days, weren't they?
They could kneel before their mistress and she would place her naked
foot upon their necks. I am a drivelling fool, you see--I talk and
talk and let the moments slip by--I am going, Lou, and this is the
vision which I am taking with me, the last imp