But it was many seconds before he spoke.
"Do you remember the wishing-gate, Nina?" he said, speaking softly. "And
how you asked for a Deliverer?"
She stretched up her arms to clasp his neck without lifting her head.
She was crying and could not answer him.
He put his hand upon her hair and she felt it tremble.
"Has the Deliverer come to you, dear?" he asked her very tenderly.
He felt for her face in the darkness, and turned it slowly upwards. She
did not resist him though she knew well what was coming. Rather she
yielded to his touch with a sudden, passionate willingness. And so their
lips met in the first kiss that had ever passed between them.
Thus there came a Deliverer more potent than death into the heart of the
girl who had married for money, and made its surrender sweet.
The Prey of the Dragon
I
"Ah! She's off!"
A deafening blast came from the great steamship's siren, and a long sigh
went up from the crowd upon the quay. Someone raised a cheer that was
quickly drowned in the noise of escaping steam. Very slowly, almost
imperceptibly, the vessel began to move.
A black gap appeared, and widened between her and the wharf till it
became a stretch of grey water veiled in the dank fog of a murky sea.
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