down into an indefinite void. He must recover some sort of balance. And
here was the hope and the perfect recovery.
Blind to her, thinking only of himself, he slipped his arm softly round
her waist, and drew her to him. Her heart fainted, feeling herself
taken. But then, his arm was so strong, she quailed under its powerful
close grasp. She died a little death, and was drawn against him as they
walked down the stormy darkness. He seemed to balance her perfectly in
opposition to himself, in their dual motion of walking. So, suddenly,
he was liberated and perfect, strong, heroic.
He put his hand to his mouth and threw his cigarette away, a gleaming
point, into the unseen hedge. Then he was quite free to balance her.
'That's better,' he said, with exultancy.
The exultation in his voice was like a sweetish, poisonous drug to her.
Did she then mean so much to him! She sipped the poison.
'Are you happier?' she asked, wistfully.
'Much better,' he said, in the same exultant voice, 'and I was rather
far gone.'
She nestled against him. He felt her all soft and warm, she was the
rich, lovely substance of his being. The warmth and motion of her walk
suffused through him wonderfully.
'I'm SO glad if I help you,' she said.
'Yes,' he answered. 'There's nobody else could do it, if you wouldn't.'
'That is true,' she said to herself, with a thrill of strange, fatal
elation.
As they walked, he seemed to lift her nearer and nearer to himself,
till she moved upon the firm vehicle of his body.
He was so strong, so sustaining, and he could not be opposed. She
drifted along in a wonderful interfusion of physical motion, down the
dark, blowy hillside. Far across shone the little yellow lights of
Beldover, many of them, spread in a thick patch on another dark hill.
But he and she were walking in perfect, isolated darkness, outside the
world.
'But how much do you care for me!' came her voice, almost querulous.
'You see, I don't know, I don't understand!'
'How much!' His voice rang with a painful elation. 'I don't know
either--but everything.' He was startled by his own declaration. It was
true. So he stripped himself of every safeguard, in making this
admission to her. He cared everything for her--she was everything.
'But I can't believe it,' said her low voice, amazed, trembling. She
was trembling with doubt and exultance. This was the thing she wanted
to hear, only this. Yet now she heard it, heard the strange clapping
vibration of truth in his voice as he said it, she could not believe.
She could not believe--she did not believe. Yet she believed,
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