She
could not help watching them and presently she saw a hot red glow
under the skin as if a flood had risen. It subsided in a few moments,
but presently she saw it rise again. This happened several times
and he was holding his lip with, his teeth. Once she saw his
shoulders more and he coughed obstinately two or three times. She
knew that he would die before he would let himself cry, but she
wished he would descend to it just this once, as the fields and
hedges raced past and he was carried "Away! Away!" It might be
that it was all his manhood she was saving for him.
He really made her heart stand still for a moment just as she was
thinking this and saying it to herself almost fiercely. He suddenly
turned on her; the blue of his eyes was flaming and the tide had
risen again in his cheeks and neck. It was a thing like rage she
saw before her--a child's rage and impotently fierce. He cried out
as if he were ending a sentence he had not finished when he spoke
as he sat on the floor buttoning his shoes.
"She has no one but me to remember!" he said. "No one but me had
ever even kissed her. She didn't know!"
To her amazement he clenched both his savage young fists and shook
them before him.
"It'll kill me!" he raged.
She could not hold herself back. She caught at him with her arms
and meant to drag him to her breast. "No! No! Donal!" she cried.
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