Page:The Other House (London, William Heinemann, 1896), Volume 2.djvu/191

 XXXII

to Tony, she wailed under her breath: "I must speak to you—I must speak to you! But how can you ever look at me?—how can you ever forgive me?" In an instant he had met her; in a flash the gulf was bridged: his arms had opened wide to her and she had thrown herself into them. They had only to be face to face to let themselves go; he making no answer but to press her close against him, she pouring out her tears upon him as if the contact quickened the source. He held her and she yielded with a passion no bliss could have given; they stood locked together in their misery with no sound and no motion but her sobs. Breast to breast and cheek to cheek, they felt simply that they had ceased to be apart. This long embrace was the extinction of all limits and questions—swept away in a flood which tossed them over the years and in which nothing remained erect but the