Page:Walpole - Fortitude.djvu/332

 me go. Then, if you keep me through that, you'll always keep me.”

To Peter it was almost as though she were talking in her sleep, something, there in the old, lumbering cab that was given to her by some one else to say something to which she herself would not give credit.

“That's all right, you darling, you darling, you darling.” He covered her face, her eyes with kisses. “I'll never let you go—never.” He felt her quiver a little under his arms.

“Don't mind, Peter, my horrible, beastly character. Just keep me for a little, train me—and then later I'll be such a wife to you, such a wife!”

Then she drew his head down. His lips touched her body just above her dress, where her cloak parted.

She whispered:

“There's something else.”

She raised her face from his coat and looked up at him. Her cheeks were stained with crying and her eyes, large and dark, held him furiously as though he were the one place of safety.

He caught her very close.

"What is it? ”

That night, long after he, triumphant with the glory of her secret, had fallen asleep, she lay, staring into the dark, with frightened eyes.