unregenerate, and crudely insistent. At that moment
something died in his heart. His love for her died, but
into its place leapt an impulse as primitive as her own,
and he kissed her lips roughly, despairingly.
'Hold me closer . . . closer, Christophe;* she
whispered.
He flung out his arms with a queer wide gesture,
and even as he did so he cried aloud, for his hands
seemed transfixed by shafts of pain, so that his extended
arms remained rigid: €I cannot;5 he said wildly,
'^Eliana, I cannot!'
She stared at him aghast. He was standing quite
still, a dark, motionless figure, powerful yet helpless;
nor did he speak after those first words. There was
something awful about his stillness and about the
bewildered expression of his eyes. Turning, she fled
away down the path, leaving him there alone in the
moonlight.
His arms dropped to his sides. He looked at his
hands: the flesh of the palms was whole and unblem-
ished, no wounds to account for that searing pain, no
traces of blood on the work-hardened skin, and no
pain any more. But fear — the old fear — only ten-
fold more poignant than in the past. Covering his
face he fell to sobbing.
§2
Early the next morning came Eusebe, and he appar-
ently all but demented: 'She has gone! ^jEliana has
gone!' he wailed as he hobbled into the Benedit's
kitchen. 'Only this moment am I come from the
station where the porter assisted them to catch the
train — ^Eliana and that lecherous cripple, Beauvais.
I slept soundly — I was tired — I am always tired —
and she must have sneaked out of the house and met
him. Ai! las, when I went to find her in her room her
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