She was attractively alive. Her hair waved back from her
forehead with natural grace; her small feet, with perfect ankles, made
her foothold secure and sedately joyous. Her brown hand--yet not so brown
after all--held her hat lightly, and was, somehow, like a signal out of a
world in which his hopes were lost for the present.
She was dearer to him than all the rest of the world; and he had in his
hand what kept them apart--a sentence of death, unless he escaped from
the wanton calling him to fulfil duties into which he had been tricked.
Luzanne Larue had a terrible hold over him. He gripped the letter in his
pocket as a Hopi Indian does the body of a poisonous snake. The rosy
sunset gave the girl's face a reflected spiritual glamour; it made her,
suddenly, a bewildering figure. Somehow, she seemed a great distance from
him--as one detached and unfamiliar.
He suddenly felt she knew more than it was possible she should know. As
she flashed an inquiry into his eyes, it was as though she said: "Why
don't you tell me everything, and I will help you?" Or, was it: "Why
don't you tell me everything and end it all?" He longed to press her to
his breast, as he had once done in the woods when Denzil had been
injured, but that was not possible.
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