Page:Frank Packard - Greater Love Hath No Man.djvu/116

 to arrange some runners on which was to be trained the Virginia creeper she had planted the year before.

He had been watching her with covert admiration; and more than once, as she stood on tiptoe, reaching up to fasten a piece of cord, their hands had met, as, deliberately seizing upon the excuse, he had taken the string from her. More graceful, more adorable, more to be possessed than ever she seemed. And why should he not possess her?—why should he still have to come to her here where these bald, ugly prison walls, even if they affected him less now, were nevertheless forever thrusting themselves sardonically before his eyes?—why should he wait any longer? The passion, the desire that was in him for her seemed this afternoon to be climaxing, to be greater, more uncontrollable than it had ever been before. The touch of her hand seemed to fire him with a mad impulse to grasp it fiercely, to draw and crush her to him. And she had felt it too, he told himself with elation. He had never seen her so sober, so quiet, so subdued, less inclined for conversation, less of gaiety about her.

She stopped suddenly in the midst of a plaintive little air she was humming.

"Does the spring ever affect you like that?" she asked abruptly.

Merton started as she spoke.

"Like what?" he inquired mechanically.

"I don't know just how to explain it," she said, smiling a little wistfully. "It should be the happiest time in the year, shouldn't it? Everything is so fresh and new and clean; it's like the beginning of life all over again—old life making a fresh start with the scars and