Page:Quiller-Couch--Old fires and profitable ghosts.djvu/348

340 she went on rapidly, yet more gently, "Truth knows of the world outside, and is wakeful. If we move a step our shadows will lengthen. They will touch all bright things—they will fall across the children. Willy, we cannot move!"

"I see …"

"Ah?" She craned forward and almost touched his arm again.

"Annie, it comes to me now—I see for the first time how happy we might have been. How came we two to kill love?"

The woman gave a cry, almost of joy. Her fingers touched his sleeve now. "We have not killed love. We—I—had stunned him: but (O, I see!) he has picked up his weapons again and is fighting. He is bewildered here, in this great light, and he fights at random … fights to make you strong and me weak, you weak and me strong. We can never be one again, never. One of us must fall, must be beaten … he does not see this, but O, Willy, he fights … he fights!"

"He shall fight for you. Annie, come home!"

"No, no—for you—and the children!"

"Come!"

"Think of the people!" She held him off, shaking her head, but her eyes were wistful, intent upon his. "You have lived it down…. It would all begin again. Look at me … think of the talk …"