Part 32 (1/2)

”You--_love_--me!”

I caught her in my arms. A bright blush stained neck and face, and she threw back her head, avoiding my lips.

[Ill.u.s.tration: She threw back her head, avoiding my lips.]

”Elsin, I beg you--I beg you to love me! Can you not see what you have done to me?--how I am awakened?”

”Wait,” she pleaded, resisting me, ”wait, Carus. I--I am afraid----”

”Of love, sweetheart?”

”Wait,” she panted--”give me time--till morning--then if I change not--if my heart stirs again so loudly when you hold me--thus--and--and crush me so close to you--so close--and promise to love me----”

”Elsin, Elsin, I love you!”

”Wait--wait, Carus!--my darling. Oh, you must not--kiss me--until you know--what I am----”

Her face burned against mine; her eyes closed. Through the throbbing silence her head drooped, lower, lower, yielding her mouth to mine; then, with a cry she turned in my arms, twisting to her knees, and dropped her head forward on the bed. And, as I bent beside her, she gasped: ”No--no--wait, Carus! I know myself! I know myself! Take your lips from my hands--do not touch me! My brain has gone blind, I tell you! Leave me to think--if I can----”

”I will not leave you here in tears. Elsin, Elsin, look at me!”

”The tears help me--help us both,” she sobbed. ”I know what I know.

Leave me--lest the very sky fall to crush us in our madness----”

I bent beside her, a new, fierce tenderness choking me; and at my touch she straightened up, tear-stained face lifted, and flung both arms around my neck.

”I love you, Carus! I love you!” she stammered. ”I care for that, only--only for that! If it be for a week, if it be for a day, an hour, an instant, it is what I was made for, it is what I was fas.h.i.+oned for--to love you, Carus! There is nothing else--nothing else in all the world! Love me, take me, do with me what you will! I yield all you ask, all you beg, all you desire--all save wedlock!”

She swayed in my arms. A deadly pallor whitened her; then her knees trembled and she gave way, sinking to the floor, her head buried in the flowering curtains of the bed; and I to drop on my knees beside her, seeking to lift her face while the sobs shook her slender body, and she wept convulsively, head prostrate in her arms.

”I--I am wicked!” she wailed. ”Oh, I have done that which has d.a.m.ned me forever, Carus!--forever and ever. I can not wed you--I love you so!--yet I can not wed you! What wild folly drove me to go with you?

What devil has dragged me here to tempt you--whom I love so truly? Oh, G.o.d pity us both--G.o.d pity us!”

”Elsin,” I said hoa.r.s.ely, ”you are mad to say it! Is there anything on earth to bar us from wedlock?”

”Yes, Carus, yes!” she cried. ”It is--it is too late!”

”Too late!” I repeated, stunned.

”Aye--for I am a wedded wife! Now you know! Oh, this is the end of all!”

A while she lay there sobbing her heart out, I upright on my knees beside her, staring at blank s.p.a.ce, which reeled and reeled, so that the room swam all awry, and I strove to steady it with fixed gaze, lest the whole world come cras.h.i.+ng upon us.

At last she spoke, lifting her tear-marred face from the floor to the bed, forehead resting heavily in her hands:

”I ask your pardon--for the sin I have committed. Hear me out--that is my penance; spurn me--that is my punishment!”

She pressed her wet eyes, shuddering. ”Are you listening, Carus? The night before I sailed from Canada--_he_ sought me----”