Her face was hidden in her hands.

She rocked herself to and fro, to and fro, as if in pain.
He stood looking down at her with troubled eyes, but after a while, as she did not speak, he moved to her side and stood there.

At last, slowly and massively, he stooped and touched her.
"Columbine!" She made no direct response, only suddenly, as if his action had released in her such a flood of emotion as was utterly beyond her control, she broke into violent weeping, her head bowed low upon her knees.
"My dear!" he said.
And then--how it came about neither of them ever knew--he was on his knees beside her, holding her close in his great arms, and she was sobbing out her agony upon his breast.
It lasted for many minutes that storm of weeping.

All the torment of humiliation and grief, which till then had found no relief, was poured out in that burning torrent of tears.

She clung to him convulsively as though she even yet struggled in the deep waters, and he held her through it all with that sustaining strength that had borne her up safely against the Death Current on that night of dreadful storm.
Possibly the firm upholding of his arms brought back the memory of that former terrible struggle, for it was of that that she first spoke when speech became possible.
"Oh, why didn't you leave me to die?
Why--why--why ?" He answered her in a voice that seemed to rise from the depths of the broad chest that supported her.
"I wanted you." She buried her face deeper that he might not see the cruel burning of it.