"
"Give me a hand first, Viola."
Again the warmth went through her.
"Nobody else can."
"And you've looked at me!" she said.
There was a profound amazement in her voice.
"It's only when I look at you," he said, "that I know there are stars
somewhere beyond the pit's mouth."
"When you look at me--now?"
"Yes."
"But you are blind then?" she said.
"Or are the others blind?" he asked.
Instinctively, really without knowing what she did, she put up her hand
to her face, touched it, and no longer felt that it was ugly. For a
moment it seemed to her that her beauty was restored.
"What do you see?" she asked. "But--but it's so dark here."
"Not too dark to see a helping hand--if there is one," he answered.
And he stretched out his arm into her boat and took her right hand from
the oar it was holding.
"And there is one," he added.
She felt a hand that loved her hand, and there was no veil over her face.
How strange that was. How utterly impossible it seemed. Yet it was so. No
woman can be deceived in the touch of a hand on hers. If it loves--she
knows.
"What are you going to do, Viola?"
"I don't know."
There was a sound almost of shame, a humble sound, in her voice.
"I can't do anything," she murmured. "You would know that to-morrow, in
sunlight."
"To-morrow I'll come in sunlight."
"No, no. I shall not be there."
"I shall come."
"Oh!--good-night," she said.
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