I stood behind her, and gazed down on her for a moment.
Did I love her?
I knew she was not good! Did I hate her?
I could not leave her! I knelt beside her.
"Begone! Do not dare touch me," she cried.
Her arms lay on the grass by her sides as if paralyzed.
Suddenly they closed about my neck, rigid as those of the torture-maiden.

She drew down my face to hers, and her lips clung to my cheek.

A sting of pain shot somewhere through me, and pulsed.

I could not stir a hair's breadth.

Gradually the pain ceased.