"Look at me!" said the voice imperiously. Two large dark eyes caught
my wavering glance and held it, as in a vise. "Sophy! Sophy! _I need
you._"
Said another voice, then, brokenly: "For mercy's sake, Jelnik, let
her go in peace!"
"No, she sha'n't die. I won't have it!--Sophy, come back! It is I
who call you, Sophy. Come back!"
My stiff lips moved. "Must go--sleep," I tried to say.
"No, I forbid you to go to sleep, Sophy!" His dark eyes, full of
life and compelling power, held my tired and dimmed ones, his firm,
warm hands held my cold and inert fingers. "My love, my dear love,
stay. You have got to stay, Sophy. Don't you understand? You can't
go, Sophy!"
My dulled brain stumblingly laid hold upon a thought: _Nicholas
Jelnik was calling me. He was calling me because he loved me._ One
simply can't go down into sleep and darkness, when a miracle like
that is climbing like the morning-star into one's skies.
"Stay!" he said, his lips against my ear. "Sophy! My love, my dear
love, stay!"
But although he held me close, I could feel myself being drawn away.
There must have been that in my straining glance that made him
aware, for of a sudden he cried out, lifted me bodily in his arms,
and kissed me on the mouth.
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