Page:The Yellow Book - 04.djvu/210

188 The next moment had brought us up to the others, and to the end of the passage.

Mrs. Long turned round, and held out her hand to me.

"Good-bye," she said. "We have had a most interesting afternoon."

It was with an effort that I made some conventional remark.

Theodora, with perfect outward calm, shook hands with myself and Digby, with her sweetest smile, and passed out.

I lingered some few minutes with Digby, talking; and then he went off to his own diggings, and I returned slowly down the passage to my rooms.

My blood and pulses seemed beating as they do in fever, my ears seemed full of sounds, and that kiss burnt like the brand of hot iron on my lips. When I reached my rooms, I locked the door and flung both the windows open to the snowy night. The white powder on the ledge crumbled and drifted in.