r on the mouth, a long, long kiss that did away with any need of
explanation or forgiveness. There was no returning afterward to the old
selves again, they both knew before their lips had parted. It was as if
they two had climbed to the top of a high tower together, and a door had
been shut and locked behind them.

By and by he made her sit on the wooden seat under the rose canopy; and
going down on one knee, he took up a fold of her dress and kissed it. No
man but one of Latin blood could have done this and kept his dignity;
but as he did the thing it was beautiful, even sacred to Mary, as if he
knelt to pour balm on the wound that once he had given her. Though his
lips touched only her dress, the very hem of it, she felt the thrill of
the touch, as she had felt his kiss on her mouth. This was her lover,
and her knight. She half feared, half adored the thought that from this
moment she had granted him rights; that a man loved her, and had kissed
her, and that she had confessed to loving him. It was so different from
anything which she had dreamed could come to her that she could hardly
believe it was happening: for when she had left the convent she was
still a nun in her outlook upon life.

Yet now this bowed dark head, and the rim of brown throat between the
short, thick hair and the stiff white collar, looked somehow familiar,
as if the man who knelt there had always been hers. So dear was the
head, so boyish in its humility, that ridiculous tears rushed smarting
to her eyes. She wanted to laugh and to cry. Where his lips had touched
her dress, she almost expected to see a spark of light clinging, like a
fallen star.

When he looked up and saw the tears, still kneeling he put his arms
around her, and slowly drew her to him. Then her hands stole out to
clasp his neck, her fingers interlacing, and she let her cheek lie
softly against his. His face was hot as if the sun had scorched it, and
she could feel a little pulse beating in his temple. There was a faint
suggestion rather than a fragrance of tobacco smoke about his hair and
his clothes, which made her want to laugh with a delightful, childish
sense of amusement that mingled with the thrill of her love for him.

"You always belonged to me, you know," he said. "What time I have
wasted, not finding you before! But I knew you existed. I knew always
that I should meet you some day. And then I nearly lost you--but we
won't talk of that, because you have forgiven me: