"
Care! The word was like an explosion setting things loose in his brain,
and the touch of her hand sent a sweep of fire through him. He heard
himself cry out, a strange, unhuman sort of cry, as he swept her to his
breast. He held her close, crushing kisses upon her mouth, his fingers
buried in her hair, her slender body almost broken in his arms. She was
alive--she had come back to him--and he forgot everything in these blind
moments but that great truth which was sweeping over him in a glorious
inundation. Then, suddenly, he found that she was fighting him,
struggling to free herself and putting her hands against his face in her
efforts. She was so close that he seemed to see nothing but her eyes,
and in them he did not see what he had dreamed of finding--but horror.
It was a stab that went into his heart, and his arms relaxed. She
staggered back, trembling and swaying a little as she got her breath,
her face very white.
He had hurt her. The hurt was in her eyes, in the way she looked at him,
as if he had become a menace from which she would run if he had not
taken the strength from her. As she stood there, her parted lips showing
the red of his kisses, her shining hair almost undone, he held out his
hands mutely.
"You think--I came here for _that?_" she panted.
"No," he said.
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