Page:Conflict (1927).pdf/48

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

moved his hand nearer and nearer to Sheilah's, until it touched it. Only the edge of it, and she wore her gloves, too. But oh—oh!

'I must go in!' she exclaimed for the third time.

'Why?'

'Oh, I must! I must!'

'No, you mustn't.'

Sheilah dropped her free hand to her side. She had been holding it against her chest till then. There was in the helpless little gesture sudden submission. She stood very still afterwards without further protest and waited. Slowly Felix's fingers stole to her bare wrist, and lay there, cold. She had had to wrench herself away finally. Not that Felix grasped her wrist, or held or detained her in any way, but it was as if the aura, minute by minute, had swathed itself around them, and held her to him.

IV

It was after midnight before Sheilah went to sleep, and she woke early, long before the gray dawn came creeping into the room. It was a dream that woke her. A terrible dream. She had dreamed the same dream several times before. It always woke her.

It was a dream about a Chinaman—a yellow-skinned, slant-eyed Chinaman, in baggy clothes, working in a garden. The garden didn't have many