Lola was standing rigid on the
hearthrug, her hand shielding the whole of the right side of her face.
With the free hand she checked my impetuous advance.
"Stop and look!" she said, and then dropped the shielding hand, and
stood before me with twitching lips and death in her eyes. I saw in a
flash the devastation that had been wrought; but, thank God, I pierced
beneath it to the anguish in her heart. The pity--the awful, poignant
pity--of it smote me. Everything that was man in me surged towards her.
What she saw in my eyes I know not; but in hers dawned a sudden wonder.
There was no recoil of shock, such as she had steeled herself to
encounter. I sprang forward and clasped her in my arms. Her stiffened
frame gradually relaxed and our lips met, and in that kiss all fears and
doubts were dissolved for ever.
Some hours later she said: "If you are blind enough to care for a maimed
thing like me, I can't help it. I shall never understand it to my dying
day," she added with a long sigh.
"And you will marry me?"
"I suppose I've got to," she replied.
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