Still she did not speak. Still it was that torpid terror that gazed at him. And the terror was not for what he had thought it was; it was for what he had said. It was a contagious terror. She cared. In some unexplained, unforeseen way she cared terribly; and his projects crumbled beneath her gaze; bewilderment drifted in his mind; her fear gained him.
"What is the matter? What is it?" he asked.
The change and sharpness in his voice brought them near at last. Kitty seized his hands and lifted them from her; yet grasping, clinging as she held him off. He would not have thought her face capable of such fierceness and demand. She was hardly recognisable as she said: "Do you want to die? Don't you mind dying?"
"Mind?--I should rather not, of course. I care for my life. But one must face it; what else is there to do?--And,--what is it Kitty? What have I done to you?"
And now, her head fallen back, her eyes closed, tears ran down her face, as piteously, agonised and stricken, she asked:
"Don't you love me at all? Don't you mind leaving me at all?"
His astonishment was so great that for a moment it bereft him of words. He had risen and was holding her; her eyes were closed and she sobbed and sobbed, her head fallen back. And her passion of sorrow and despair, her loveliness, too, and youth, seized and shook him; so that all the things he had not felt yet, all the hovering, dreadful things, the dark forms of the cavern, encompassed, pressed upon him; despair and longing, the horror of annihilation, the agonising sweetness of life. It was as if a hidden wound had been opened and that his blood was gushing forth, not to peace, but to pain and torment. He felt his own sobs rising; she cared; how much she cared. It was as if her caring gave him back the self that yesterday had blotted out; in her pain he knew his own; in her self he saw and mourned his own doomed and piteous self. His head leaned to hers and his lips sought hers, when, suddenly, a furious memory came, and indignation suffocated him.
He thrust her violently away, holding her by the shoulders. "How dare you! how dare you!" he cried. "You don't love me. You don't mind my dying. How dare you torture me like this--when it's not real,--when I was at peace."