ly servant went. She had to get up at an unearthly hour,
and I--I got up too. I helped her to get off. And when she was gone I
went up to my bedroom again and cried. I cried with envy for any one,
any one who could go away. I've been nowhere--except to school at
Chichester and three or four times to Emsworth and Bognor--for eight
years. When you go"--the tears glittered in the moonlight--"I shall cry.
It will be worse than the excursion to London.... Ever since you were
here before I've been thinking of it."

It seemed to Benham that here indeed was the very sister of his spirit.
His words sprang into his mind as one thinks of a repartee. "But why
shouldn't you come too?" he said.

She stared at him in silence. The two white-lit faces examined each
other. Both she and Benham were trembling.

"COME TOO?" she repeated.

"Yes, with me."

"But--HOW?"

Then suddenly she was weeping like a child that is teased; her troubled
eyes looked out from under puckered brows. "You don't mean it," she
said. "You don't mean it."

And then indeed he meant it.

"Marry me," he said very quickly, glancing towards the dark group at the
end of the garden. "And we will go together."

He seized her arm and drew her to him. "I love you," he said. "I love
your spirit. You are not like any one else."

There was a moment's hesitation.

Both he and she looked to see how far they were still alone.

Then they turned their dusky faces to each other. He drew her still
closer.

"Oh!" she said, and yielded herself to be kissed. Their lips touched,
and for a moment he held her lithe body against his own.

"I want you," he whispered close to her. "You are my mate. From the
first sight of you I knew that...."

They embraced--alertly furtive.

Then they stood a little apart. Some one was coming towards them.
Amanda's bearing changed swiftly. She put up her little face to his,
confidently and intimately.

"Don't TELL any one," she whispered eagerly shaking his arm to emphasize
her words. "Don't tell any one--not yet. Not for a few days...."

She pushed him from her quickly as the shadowy form of Betty appeared in
a little path between the artichokes and raspberry canes.

"Listening to the nightingales?" cried Betty.

"Yes, aren't they?" said Amanda inconsecutively.

"That's our very own nightingale!" cried Betty advancing. "Do you hear
it, Mr. Benham? No, not that one. That is a quite inferior bird that
performs in the vicarage trees