"Where am I to be sheltered? In your home, Theodora?"
"I thought that. I see now that it was a foolish hope, Douglas."
"How did you hope it? What brought you here?"--his voice thick,
tremulous with passion. "Were you going to take me in as a Sister of
Charity might some wounded dog? Are pity and gratitude all that is left
between you and me?"
She did not answer,--her face pale, unmoving in the moonlight, quietly
turned to his. These mad heats did not touch her.
"You may be cold enough to palter with fire that has burned you,
Theodora. I am not."
She did not speak.
"Sooner than have gone to you for sisterly help and comfort, such as you
gave just now, I would have frozen in the snow, and been less cold.
Unless you break down the bar you put between us, I never want to see
your face again,--never, living or dead! I want no sham farce of
friendship between us, benefits given or received: your hand touching
mine as it might touch Bone's or David Gaunt's; your voice cooing in my
ear as it did just now, cool and friendly. It maddened me. Rest can
scarcely come from you to me, now."
"I understand you. I am to go back, then? It was a long road,--and cold,
Douglas."
He stopped abruptly, looked at her steadily.
"Do not taunt me, child! I am a blunt man: what words say, they mean, to
me.
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