Memory and
foresight were both swept away like withered leaves by the strength of
the terrible temptation.
His arm stole round her waist, and he drew her toward him--close--closer
yet; then she looked up in his face. The cloud of thoughtful gravity has
passed away from hers, and the provocations of a myriad of coquettes and
courtesans concentrated in her marvelous eyes.
He bent down his lofty head, and instantly their lips met, and were set
together fast.
A kiss! Tibullus, Secundus, Moore, and a thousand other poets and
poetasters, have rhymed on the word for centuries, decking it with the
choicest and quaintest conceits. But, remember, it was with a kiss that
the greatest of all criminals sealed the unpardonable sin--it was a kiss
which brought on Francesca punishment so unutterably piteous that he
swooned at the sight who endured to look on all other terrors of
nine-circled hell.
CHAPTER XXI.
"God help thee, then!
I'll see thy face no more.
Like water spilled upon the plain,
Not to be gathered up again,
Is the old love I bore."
Before that long caress was ended, close behind them there broke forth a
low, plaintive cry, such as might be wrung from the bravest of delicate
women, in her extremity of pain, when stricken by a heavy brutal hand.
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