om the meadows."

"We call it whitethorn in Ireland."

There was a long pause, then he spoke again.

"I think you look sad to-night," he said. "Are you sorry that you
came?"

"No, no--of course not. It's the moonlight that makes me paler than
usual. But I'm always pale. You shouldn't look at me so closely,
Arthur."

"I love to look at you. It isn't always that I get the chance. I just
wanted to be certain that you weren't anxious. You don't think that we
oughtn't to have come here?"

"No, why shouldn't we?" she said, turning her face away.

Then suddenly, in the edge of the copse beyond the nearest field, the
nightingale began. The song was so beautiful in the stillness of the
night that even Mrs. Payne, who had other things to think of, felt its
influence. It was a strange, unearthly moment.

"You hear it?" Arthur whispered; but Gabrielle did not answer; she laid
her hand on his sleeve and Arthur trembled at her touch. So they stood
listening, close together, while Arthur took the hand that held him.
She smiled and turned her eyes towards him but they could not look at
each other for long. She surrendered herself to his arms and they
kissed.

Mrs. Payne saw their faces close together in the dusk and their shadowy
bodies entwined. She could bear it no longer, but turned and groped
her way back along the privet hedge to the door from which she had
first come. She did not know where she was going or how she went until
she found that she had reached her own bedroom again. There, in her
dressing-gown, she threw herself on the bed and fell into a fit of
violent sobbing. She lay there shaken by sobs like a disconsolate
child. Over in the coppice the nightingale sang exultantly as if he
knew of the wonder that his song had revealed to the lovers who
listened to him with their lips together.

XIX

It seemed to Mrs. Payne an endless time before she heard the steps of
Gabrielle returning. She thanked heaven when she knew that she was
coming back alone. The bedroom door closed and the sound pulled her
together. It suggested to her that the time had now come when something
must be done, and though it would have been much pleasanter to let the
matter stand over until the morning, she knew that nothing could be
gained by waiting, since all of the three people concerned were at that
moment awake, and the crisis of the affair had been reached.

The reasons that had dissuaded her from tackling Ar