Let me hear you forgive me."
Every word had reached its mark. She had realized at last something of the depth, the tenacity, the rich, illimitable promise of the pa.s.sion which she had roused. The tenderness of Marie seemed to encompa.s.s them, and a sacred pathetic sense of death and loss drew them together. Her respect, her reverence, her interest had been yielded long ago; did this troubled yearning within mean something more, something infinitely greater?
She raised herself suddenly, and, as he knelt beside her, he felt her warm breath on his cheek, and a tear dropped on his hands, which her own were blindly and timidly seeking.
"Oh!" she whispered, or rather sobbed, "I never dreamt of it. I never thought of anything like this. But--do not leave me again. I could not bear it."
Kendal bowed his head upon the hands nestling in his, and it seemed to him as if life and time were suspended, as if he and she were standing within the "wind-warm s.p.a.ce" of love, while death and sorrow and parting--three grave and tender angels of benediction--kept watch and ward without.
THE END