Page:Gibbs--The yellow dove.djvu/131

 “I came to—to see you again”

His eyes were still searching the darkness around them.

“Who told you to come here?”

“No one,” she lied. “I followed you.”

“Who saw you come? You heard?”

“Yes” slowly. “O Cyril—I can’t let you go from me like this”

She put her face to her hands and felt his arms enfold her. She trembled, but in this weakness a new kind of strength came to her. “I want you to come with me away—away from all this—for me—for England. It’s my last appeal—you must not refuse it. I—I want you so, Cyril, as it used to be.”

She felt his lips gently touch her brow and heard his whisper,

“God bless you!”

She clung to him desperately, to his caress, the one sure symbol of his purity

“I love you, Cyril,” she murmured, “I can’t help it. I’ve tried not to. But you couldn’t kiss me like this, reverently, if you did not love me well enough to forget everything else. Say you do, dear.”

“I love you,” he whispered again. “But you must not stay here. You must”

“Doesn’t it mean something to you that I came,” she went on breathlessly, “that I could forget—what happened—that the love that was in my heart for you was greater than my hatred of what you are? I came so that you could know it by the difficulty, the danger that I ran. I don’t care what others may think of me. The only thing that matters is to have you again. You don’t know what it cost me to come. I am not the kind to be held so lightly, Cyril. I have forgotten my