Page:E Nesbit - The Literary Sense.djvu/320

308 out his dead fingers and touch your neck. Ah!" The awakened wind had moved an ivy spray to the suggested touch. She sprang up with a cry, and the next moment she was clinging wildly to me, as I held her in my arms.

"Don't cry, my dear, oh, don't! Forgive me, it was the ivy."

She caught her breath.

"How could you! how could you!"

And still I held her fast, with—as she grew calmer—a question in the clasp of my arms, and, presently, on my lips.

"Oh, my dear, forgive me! And is it true—do you?—do you?"

"Yes—no—I don't know. . . . No, no, not through my veil, it is so unlucky!"