'You have not answered me, Theodosia?'

She swallowed, her wide, startled eyes sliding over his face. She got up. 'I don't understand you, sir. I must be going back now. The sun is high.'

He sprang to her, put a rough hand on her white arm. 'Wait!'

She stood still, trembling, staring down at his hand.

Wait for what? They neither of them knew. The myriad sounds of the awakening forest swelled around them, sounds that for Lewis each held meaning, had he heard them, but he was deaf to everything except the thick beat of blood through his temples and the voice of bitter desire for this woman who was neither of his kind nor his ken.

'"Thou alone canst give release,"' he quoted harshly, scarcely knowing that he spoke. 'Do you remember?'

She shut her eyes. 'I remember, but let me go—please—please——'

He shook his head. His grip on her arm tightened; he pulled her toward him. She felt that her whole being was dissolving into the rushing of resistless waters. They looked into each other's eyes and saw deep shadows and the call of their longing. Tears scalded her lids as she lifted her mouth to his.

In that moment of physical communion, they escaped from themselves to become another, which was both of them and yet neither in a unity beyond time or place or thought, compact with bliss.

Then he put her from him. God's blood! he thought savagely. That's done it, you fool! Why did you not let her go?

Her head fell against his shoulder. She clung to him in blind submission. 'Meme,' she whispered, 'I'm so happy'. She looked up at him with the sweet languorous eyes of new passion. Her face now seemed to him achingly beautiful, lit by the radiance of the woman beloved. He touched the bright smoothness of her loosened hair, but his voice was harsh.

'Happy!' He spat out the word as though it burned his month. 'Neither of us is marked for happiness, my dear one, Wc must do without that.'

She stirred against him, scarcely understanding. 'But we can be happy for a little while; we can see each other; we can be together often. There must be ways——'

He sighed. The furrows deepened in his cheeks. 'Theodosia, we are not some John and Sally of the tavern who may make love in corners and none the wiser. Would to God we were!' He paused, and went on with a stony desperation. 'Why didn't you listen to me in New York when we met? That was our moment, but it slipped away. We are destined now to march forever on different trails. I am leaving in a fortnight to head an expedition to the West. I shall be gone for years. Very like I shall never come back.'