The Web of the Golden Spider Part 46

"Come," she said.

He went in through the window and opened the door for her. The house smelled just as musty as before, but there was less thrill to the dark. They lighted a bit of candle and made their way along the lower hall, up the broad stairs and so into the very room where they had stood a few months before. There were no strange creakings now, no half-guessed movements among the curtains, no swift-gliding shadows more felt than seen. There were no such vast s.p.a.ces above, and no uncertain alleys of dark. They were among the known things, the certain, the sure.

He found kindling and lighted the fire. It flared up briskly and threw flickering rays into the big room. The two pressed close to it, for their clothes were wet. Not a thing was altered in the room and yet it was a different room. The room was now a part of this house, the house was part of the street, the street was part of the city, the city part of the man-made world. For a moment the walls pressed in upon them as the hotel walls had done, and the ceilings shut out the stars. Then he turned and met her eyes. They were clear now--unshadowed by doubt, fear, or question. He knew what it meant,--at length she was altogether out of the web. It was odd but he had never kissed her lips. He had waited for this.

She looked up at him and as she looked, she seemed to sink deeper than ever into the golden, misty region which lay below the outer dark of his eyes. She felt a tingling warmth suffuse her whole body; she felt the room about her quicken to new life; and above her head she knew the stars were s.h.i.+ning again. She came into his arms putting her hands upon his shoulder, throwing back her head with half-closed eyes. He stooped, his lips brushed her lips; then met firmly in a clinging kiss which set the world about them into a mad riot.