The next moment she was free; the door closed behind him, and she was alone.  She sank down over the table, quivering all over.  Her pulses were racing, her nerves in a wild tumult.  She believed that the memory of that scorching kiss would tingle upon her lips for ever.  It was as if an electric current had suddenly entered her inner-most being and now ran riot in every vein.  And so wild was the tumult within her that she knew not whether dread or dismay or a frantic, surging, leaping thing that seemed to cry aloud for liberty were first in that mad race.  She clasped her hands very tightly over her face, struggling to master those inner forces that fought within her.  Never in her life had so fierce a conflict torn her.  Soul and body, she seemed to be striving with an adversary who pierced her at every turn.  He had kissed her thus; and in that unutterable moment he had opened her eyes, confronting her with an amazing truth from which she could not turn aside.  Passion and a fierce and terrible jealousy had mingled in his kiss, anger also, and a menacing resentment that seemed to encompass her like a fiery ring, hedging her round.

But not love!  There had been no love in his kiss.  It had been an outrage of love, and it had wounded her to the heart.  It had made her want to hide—­to hide—­till the first poignancy of the pain should be past.  And yet—­and yet—­in all her anguish she knew that the way which Guy had so recklessly suggested was no way of escape for her.  To flee from him was to court disaster—­such disaster as would for ever wreck her chance of happiness.  It could but confirm the evil doubt he harboured and might lead to such a catastrophe as she would not even contemplate.

But yet some way of escape there must be, and desperately she sought it, striving in defence of that nameless thing that had sprung to such wild life within her under the burning pressure of his lips, that strange and untamed force that she could neither bind nor subdue, but which to suffer him to behold meant sacrilege to her shrinking soul—­such sacrilege as she believed she could never face and live.

Gradually the turmoil subsided, but it left her weak, inert, impotent.  The impulse to pray came to her, but the prayer that went up from her trembling heart was voiceless and wordless.  She had no means of expression in which to cloak her utter need.  Only the stark helplessness of her whole being cried dumbly for deliverance.

A long time passed.  The bungalow was silent and empty.  She was quite alone.  She could hear the rising rush of the wind across the veldt, and it sounded to her like a thing hunted and fleeing.  The sand of the desert whipped against the windows, and the gloom increased.  She was not naturally nervous, but a sense of fear oppressed her.  She had that fateful feeling, which sometimes comes even in the sunshine, of something about to happen, of turning a sharp corner in the road of life that must change the whole outlook and trend of existence.  She was afraid to look forward.  For the first time life had become terrible to her.