eyes opening slowly--her first consciousness, perhaps, a wonder at his
strange silence--and dazed by her own feeling and flushing painfully,
she looked at him for the first time since she began to talk, and she
saw him staring fixedly at her with a half-agonized look, as though he
were speechlessly trying to stop her, his face white, bitter, shamed,
helpless, Not a word more dropped from her lips--not a sound. She
moved; it seemed that she was about to fall, and Crittenden started
toward her, but she drew herself erect, and, as she turned--lifting her
head proudly--the moonlight showed that her throat was drawn--nothing
more. Motionless and speechless, Crittenden watched her white shape move
slowly and quietly up the walk and grow dim; heard her light, even step
on the gravel, up the steps, across the porch, and through the doorway.
Not once did she look around.

* * * * *

He was in his room now and at his window, his face hard as stone when
his heart was parching for tears. It was true, then. He was the brute he
feared he was. He had killed his life, and he had killed his
love--beyond even her power to recall. His soul, too, must be dead, and
it were just as well that his body die. And, still bitter, still shamed
and hopeless, he stretched out his arms to the South with a fierce
longing for the quick fate--no matter what--that was waiting for him
there.




IX