"Go back to them! They
are your friends. If you do not go, you will break your heart--as mine
is broken. Swear to me--you must, because--"
He bent closer to her to catch every sound that fell from her lips.
His pulses were beating with a suffocating violence. Somewhere a veil
was lifting. It was as if the sunlight were at last breaking through a
mist of strange dreams, strange longings, strange forebodings. The
confused voices that had called to him throughout his life grew
clearer.
"Because--?" he whispered.
But she did not answer. Her head was thrown back. Her open eyes were
fixed intently on his face. Suddenly she smiled. It was a smile that
chilled his blood with its hideous distortion. And yet behind it
lurked the possibility of a long-lost beauty and sweetness.
"Steven!" she whispered. "Steven!"
Closer and closer she drew his face to hers. Her icy lips rested on
his cheek. Pity and a strange, as yet unformed, foreboding made him
accept that dying caress and speak to her with an urgent, pleading
gentleness.
"You have something to tell me," he murmured, "something I must know.
Tell me before it is too late."
But her eyes had closed and she did not answer him.
"Rouse yourself!" he insisted. "Rouse yourself!" It seemed to him that
she smiled. Her face had undergone a change. It was younger, and in
the flickering light his imagination brightened it with the glories
whose dim traces still touched the haggard, emaciated features.
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