“And I?” she faltered, deadly pale.

“You don’t know what you’re saying!” he said violently.

“I—­I begin to think I do....  Garry—­Garry—­I am learning very fast!...  How can I let you go!”

“The idea is,” he said grimly, “for me to go before I go insane....  And never again to touch you—­”

“Why?”

“Peril!” he said.  “I’m just a plain blackguard, Shiela.”

“Would it change you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Not to touch me, not to kiss me.  Could you go on always just loving me?...  Because if you could not—­through the years that are coming—­I—­I had rather take the risk—­with you—­than lose you.”

He stood, head bent, not trusting himself to speak or look at her.

“Good-night,” she said timidly.

He straightened up, stared at her, and turned on his heel, saying good night in a low voice.

“Garry!”

“Good-night,” he muttered, passing on.

Her heart was beating so violently that she pressed her hand to it, leaning against the door sill.

“Garry!” she faltered, stretching out the other hand to him in the darkness, “I—­I do not care about the—­risk—­if you care to—­kiss me—­”

He swung round from the shadows to the dimly lighted sill; crossed it.  For a moment they looked into one another’s eyes; then, blinded, she swayed imperceptibly toward him, sighing as his arms tightened and her own crept up around his neck.

She yielded, resigning lips, and lids, and throat, and fragrant hair, and each slim finger in caress unending.

Conscious of nothing save that body and soul were safe in his beloved keeping, she turned to him in all the passion of a guiltless love, whispering her adoration, her faith, her trust, her worship of the man who held her; then, adrift once more, the breathless magic overwhelmed her; and she drew him to her, closer, desperately, hiding her head on his breast.

“Take me away, Garry,” she stammered—­“take me with you.  There is no use—­no use fighting it back.  I shall die if you leave me....  Will you take me?  I—­will be—­everything that—­that you would have me—­that you might wish for—­in—­in a—­wife—­”

She was crying now, crying her heart out, her face crushed against his shoulder, clinging to him convulsively.

“Will you take me, Garry?  What am I without you?  I cannot give you up!  I will not....  Nobody can ask that of me—­How can they ask that of me?—­to give you up—­to let you go out of my little world for ever—­to turn from you, refuse you!...  What a punishment for one instant’s folly!  If they knew they would not let me suffer this way!—­They would want me to tell them—­”

His dry lips unclosed.  “Then tell them!” he tried to say, but the words were without sound; and, in the crisis of temptation, at the very instant of yielding, suddenly he knew, somehow, that he would not yield.