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Page 50
"I have no wish to disgrace you," answered Bennett. "It is strange for
you to say that to me, if I love you so well that I can give up Ferriss
for--"
"Then, if you love me so much as that, there must be one thing that you
would set even above my life. Do you wish to make me hate you?"
"There is nothing in the world more to me than your life; you know that.
How can you think it of me?"
"Because you don't understand--because you don't know that--oh, that I
love you! I--no--I didn't mean--I didn't mean--"
What had she said? What had happened? How was it that the words that
yesterday she would have been ashamed to so much as whisper to herself
had now rushed to her lips almost of their own accord? After all those
years of repression, suddenly the sweet, dim thought she had hidden in
her secretest heart's heart had leaped to light and to articulate words.
Unasked, unbidden, she had told him that she loved him. She, she had
done this thing when, but a few moments before, her anger against him
had shaken her to her very finger-tips. The hot, intolerable shame of it
smote like fire into her face. Her world was cracking about her ears;
everything she had prized the dearest was being torn from her,
everything she had fancied the strongest was being overthrown. Had she,
she who had held herself so proud and high, come at last to this?
Swiftly she turned from him and clasped her hands before her eyes and
sank down into the chair she had quitted, bowing her head upon her arms,
hiding her face, shutting herself from the light of day, quivering and
thrilling with an agony of shame and with an utter, an abject
self-contempt that was beyond all power of expression. But the instant
she felt Bennett's touch upon her shoulder she sprang up as if a knife
had pierced her, and shrank from him, turning her head away, her hand,
palm outward, before her eyes.
"Oh, please!" she begged piteously, almost inarticulately in the stress
of her emotion, "don't--if you are a man--don't take advantage--please,
please don't touch me. Let me go away."
She was talking to deaf ears. In two steps Bennett had reached her side
and had taken her in his arms. Lloyd could not resist. Her vigour of
body as well as of mind was crushed and broken and beaten down; and why
was it that in spite of her shame, that in spite of her unutterable
self-reproach, the very touch of her cheek upon his shoulder was a
comfort? Why was it that to feel herself carried away in the rush of
this harsh, impetuous, masculine power was a happiness? Why was it that
to know that her prided fortitude and hitherto unshaken power were being
overwhelmed and broken with a brutal, ruthless strength was an
exultation and a glory? Why was it that she who but a moment before
quailed from his lightest touch now put her arms about his neck and
clung to him with a sense of protection and of refuge, the need of which
she had always and until that very moment disdained?
"Why should you be sorry because you spoke?" said Bennett. "I knew that
you loved me and you knew that I loved you. What does it matter if you
said it or did not say it? We know each other, you and I. We understand.
You knew that I loved you. You think that I have been strong and
determined, and have done the things I set out to do; what I am is what
you made me. What I have done I have done because I thought you would
approve. Do you think I would have come back if I had not known that I
was coming back to you?" Suddenly an impatient exclamation escaped him,
and his clasp about her tightened. "Oh! words--the mere things that one
can _say_, seem so pitiful, so miserably inadequate. Don't you know,
can't you feel what you are to me? Tell me, do you think I love you?"
But she could not bear to meet his glance just yet. Her eyes were
closed, and she could only nod her head.
But Bennett took her head in both his hands and turned her face to his.
Even yet she kept her eyes closed.
"Lloyd," he said, and his voice was almost a command; "Lloyd, look at
me. Do you love me?"
She drew a deep breath. Then her sweet dull-blue eyes opened, and
through the tears that brimmed them and wet her lashes she looked at him
and met his glance fearlessly and almost proudly, and her voice trembled
and vibrated with an infinite tenderness as she answered:
"I do love you, Ward; love you with all my heart."
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