In the Days of the Comet

I came back to Lowchester House very tired, very wretched; exhausted by my fruitless longing for Nettie.  I had no thought of what lay before me.

A miserable attraction drew me into the great house to look again on the stillness that had been my mother’s face, and as I came into that room, Anna, who had been sitting by the open window, rose to meet me.  She had the air of one who waits.  She, too, was pale with watching; all night she had watched between the dead within and the Beltane fires abroad, and longed for my coming.  I stood mute between her and the bedside. . . .

“Willie,” she whispered, and eyes and body seemed incarnate pity.

An unseen presence drew us together.  My mother’s face became resolute, commanding.  I turned to Anna as a child may turn to its nurse.  I put my hands about her strong shoulders, she folded me to her, and my heart gave way.  I buried my face in her breast and clung to her weakly, and burst into a passion of weeping. . . .

She held me with hungry arms.  She whispered to me, “There, there!” as one whispers comfort to a child. . . .  Suddenly she was kissing me.  She kissed me with a hungry intensity of passion, on my cheeks, on my lips.  She kissed me on my lips with lips that were salt with tears.  And I returned her kisses. . . .

Then abruptly we desisted and stood apart—­looking at one another.