Part 23 (1/2)

”Obviously.” He laughed, sullenly. ”I sha'n't, because you couldn't love a blind man.”

Claire only sat and looked at him, thrilled with the knowledge that he was about to tell her he loved her. She was trembling and desperately afraid of herself. She moved uneasily, and against her will; her lips said, ”I could love a blind man, Lawrence.”

He sat up and clenched his hands together quickly. The tone of her voice in itself was a direct confession. But his deep skepticism of blindness would not let him believe that he was right.

”Do you mean that you do love me?” he demanded.

She wanted to say ”Yes,” but she thought of Philip and was afraid of what he might do, should he learn of her lie. Then, too, there was her resolution to go back to Howard. Strange that her long-planned friendly explanation of her own att.i.tude did not occur to her, but it did not.

Lawrence rose and came toward her, his hands out. He was determined to know, once and for all. The gathering emotion in his breast was growing into an unbearable pain.

”Claire,” he said, coming nearer and nearer. ”Could you love me?”

His hands were almost to her. She saw them coming; terror, love, happiness, anguish, and the desire to be his paralyzed her will. She did not move.

”Yes,” she whispered, ”I could.”

He put his arms around her and lifted her until she was crushed against him.

”Do you love me, Claire?” he asked, tensely.

She did not answer, but her head sank against his shoulder.

Outside the cabin, she heard Philip's step in the snow.

”No!” she cried frantically, filled with dread. ”No, no! Let me go!”

Lawrence, too, heard, and released her, stepping back indifferently, as though just going toward a chair.

The door opened, and Philip entered.

”Oh, you're back, I see.” The artist was coldly cordial in his greeting.

”And I see you, which is more important,” Philip laughed.

”I suppose so.” Lawrence sat down, thoughtfully. ”Claire has just scolded me for going out. She doesn't like to have me add to the bother I am already.”

Claire was still under the spell of her own emotion, and she resented Lawrence's sang-froid. He was as cold as a block of stone. Her heart cried out against him because he could not see why she had said ”No” to him, because he believed her! She wanted to cry, but did not dare.

”I told him we were worried,” she said, indifferently.

”So we were.” Philip was cheerful and friendly.

Lawrence buried himself from them both, and sat brooding, clothed in the blackness that blindness brought when it suddenly loomed before him as the wall between him and his life's desires. The brief instant Claire had been in his arms had made him feel that his life was intolerable without her, and that blindness was the curse of a double living death.

She had told him that she did not love him. She had struggled to be free.

Lawrence failed to read Claire aright because he had not seen her, and because his blindness made him uncertain of himself.

That was the truth of it all, the awful truth of his life.

He was always uncertain of himself because he was afraid of blindness.