Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/45

 that all at once he was thankful and tearful and glad.

"Chêp!" (Little Bird!) he cried. "Chêp! Are you there, Fruit of my Heart? Come to me, Little One! Come, O come!"

From somewhere in the brushwood near at hand came the sound of musical laughter—the laughter of a woman who knows her power, and finds in its tyrannous exercise a triumph and delight.

"Is there space in the house for me?" she inquired demurely, tilting her head and gazing at him in mockery, while again a ripple of light laughter broke from her lips. "Or shall I go to my other house the forest?"

Kria, his withers wrung by the conviction of her elusiveness and his own impotence, tortured, too. by a fear lest even now some capricious perversity might induce her again to desert him, could only stammer out wild protestations of love and welcome. The girl was thoroughly aware that she was complete mistress of the situation, and even Kria was tempted to believe that he, not she, was the wrongdoer. In moments of rage, during her absence, he had often promised himself that, if he ever laid hands upon her again, he would give her the very soundest whipping that the forest had ever seen administered to an erring wife; but now these vows were forgotten. All he desired was to have her back, on any terms, at any price, at no matter what sacrifice, of pride, of honour, of self-respect. Even in that instant of passion and emotion he saw,