don't know,” replied Miriam.
“And I don't know,” he repeated. “Don't you think we have been too fierce in our what they call purity? Don't you think that to be so much afraid and averse is a sort of dirtiness?”
She looked at him with startled dark eyes.
“You recoiled away from anything of the sort, and I took the motion from you, and recoiled also, perhaps worse.”
There was silence in the room for some time.
“Yes,” she said, “it is so.”
“There is between us,” he said, “all these years of intimacy. I feel naked enough before you. Do you understand?”
“I think so,” she answered.
“And you love me?”
She laughed.
“Don't be bitter,” he pleaded.
She looked at him and was sorry for him; his eyes were dark with torture. She was sorry for him; it was worse for him to have this deflated love than for herself, who could never be properly mated. He was restless, for ever urging forward and trying to find a way out. He might do as he liked, and have what he liked of her.
“Nay,” she said softly, “I am not bitter.”
She felt she could bear anything for him; she would suffer for him. She put her hand on his knee as he leaned forward in his chair. He took it and kissed it; but it hurt to do so. He felt he was putting himself aside. He sat there sacrificed to her purity, which felt more like nullity. How could he kiss her hand passionately, when it would drive her away, and leave nothing but pain? Yet slowly he drew her to him and kissed her.
They knew each other too well to pretend anything. As she kissed him, she watched his eyes; they were staring across the room, with a peculiar dark blaze in them that fascinated her. He was perfectly still. She could feel his heart throbbing heavily in his breast.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked.
The blaze in his eyes shuddered, became uncertain.
“I was thinking, all the while, I love you. I have been obstinate.”
She sank her head on his breast.
“Yes,” she answered.
“That's all,” he said, and his voice seemed sure, and his mouth was kissing her throat.
Then she raised her head and looked into his eyes with her full gaze of love. The blaze struggled, seemed to try to get away from her, and then was quenched. He turned his head quickly aside. It was a moment of anguish.
“Kiss me,” she whispered.
He shut his eyes, and kissed her, and his arms folded her closer and closer.
When she walked home with him over the fields, he said:
“I am glad I came back to you. I feel so simple with you—as if there was nothing to hide. We will be happy?”
“Yes,” she murmured, and the tears came to her eyes.
“Some sort of perversity in our souls,” he said, “makes us not want, get away from, the very thing we want. We have to fight against that.”
“Yes,” she said, and she felt stunned.
As she stood under the drooping-thorn tree, in the darkness by the roadside, he kissed her, and his fingers wandered over her face. In the darkness, where he could not see her but only feel her, his passion flooded him. He clasped her very close.
“Sometime you will have me?” he murmured, hiding his face on her shoulder. It was so difficult.
“Not now,” she said.
His hopes and his heart sunk. A dreariness came over him.
“No,” he said.
His clasp of her slackened.
“I love to feel your arm THERE!” she said, pressing his arm against her back, where it went round her waist. “It rests me so.”
He tightened the pressure of his arm upon the small of her back to rest her.
“We belong to each other,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Then why shouldn't we belong to each other altogether?”
“But—” she faltered.
“I know it's a lot to ask,” he said; “but there's not much risk for you really—not in the Gretchen way. You can trust me there?”
“Oh, I can trust you.” The answer came quick and strong. “It's not that—it's not that at all—but—”
“What?”
She hid her face in his neck with a little cry of misery.
“I don't know!” she cried.
She seemed slightly hysterical, but with a sort of horror. His heart died in him.
“You don't think it ugly?” he asked.
“No, not now. You have TAUGHT me it isn't.”
“You are afraid?”
She calmed herself hastily.
“Yes, I am only afraid,” she said.
He kissed her tenderly.
“Never mind,” he said. “You should please yourself.”
Suddenly she gripped his arms round her, and clenched her body stiff.
“You SHALL have me,” she said, through her shut teeth.
His heart beat up again like fire. He folded her close, and his mouth was on her throat. She could not bear it. She drew away. He disengaged her.
“Won't you be late?” she asked gently.
He sighed, scarcely hearing what she said. She waited, wishing he would go. At last he kissed her quickly and climbed the fence. Looking round he saw the pale blotch of her face down in the darkness under the hanging tree. There was no more of her but this pale blotch.
“Good-bye!” she called softly. She had no body, only a voice and a dim face. He turned away and ran down the road, his fists clenched; and when he came to the wall over the lake he leaned there, almost stunned, looking up the black water.
Miriam plunged home over the meadows. She was not afraid of people, what they might say; but she dreaded the issue with him. Yes, she would let him have her if he insisted; and then, when she thought of it afterwards, her heart went down. He would be disappointed, he would find no satisfaction, and then he would go away. Yet he was
