Page:In the name of a woman (1900).djvu/194

 she breathed, her eyes lingering lovingly on my face, with infinite sadness and yearning.

I carried her fingers to my hot lips and kissed them fervently.

"Go, go," she cried passionately at the touch of my lips. "Go, or I shall bid you stay, let the consequences be what they will."

I looked up into her radiant face, now fired with her passion.

"One touch of your lips, if only to ease my suffering."

The ruby colour flowed rich and deep over her face, and, bending forward, she kissed me on the forehead.

"Go, in pity for me, go," she cried, excitedly.

One moment longer I stood, gazing at her with my soul in my eyes, feasting my senses on the signs of her love, and then I tore myself away. A last glance as I left the room showed me that she had thrown herself back in her chair with her hands clasped in front of her face.

I rushed back to my house, my head bewildered and dizzied with the sweet delirium of her avowed love, and I sat like a crazy loon for hours, running over and over again in thought all the incidents of the scene.

She loved me. Nothing could rob me of the sweetness of that knowledge. All else that could happen was as nothing compared to that. The plot might succeed or fall; she loved me. Bulgaria might be free or enslaved; she loved me. The Russians might triumph or fail; she loved me. It was the one balm for every sorrow, one true note of joy in every trial: she loved me; and I was mad with the delight of it all.

In the early evening Spernow came to me; and then