he murmured vaguely.

His head turned, and hers turned instinctively to meet it; and her
arms crept up around his neck.

Then of a sudden she had freed herself, stepped back, one nervous arm
outflung as if in self-defence. But her hand fell, caught on the
window-sill and clung there for support; and she rested against it
breathing rapidly and unevenly.

"Athalie--dear."

"Let me go now--"

Her lips burned for an instant under his; were wrenched away:

"Let me go, Clive--"

"You must not tremble so--"

"I can't help it.... I am afraid. I want to go, now. I--I want to
go--"

There was a chair by the window; she sank down on it and dropped her
head back against the wall behind.

And, as he stood there beside her, over her shoulder through the open
window he saw two men in the garden below, watching them.

Presently she lifted her head. His eyes remained fixed on the men
below who never moved.

She said with an effort; "Are you displeased, Clive?"

"No, my darling."

"It was not because I do not love you. Only--I--"

"I know," he whispered, his eyes fixed steadily on the men.

After a silence she said under her breath: "I understand better now
why I ought to wait for you--if there is any hope for us,--as long as
there is any chance. And after that--if there is no chance for
us--then nothing can matter."

"I know."

"To-night, earlier, I did not understand why I should deny myself to
myself, to you, to _them_.... I did not understand that what I wished
for so treacherously masked a--a lesser impulse--"

He said, quietly: "Nothing is surer than that you and I, one day,
shall face our destiny together. I really care nothing for custom,
law, or folk-way, or dogma, excepting only for your sake. Outside of
that, man's folk-ways, man's notions of God, mean nothing to me: only
my own intelligence and belief appeal to me. I must guide myself."

"Guide me, too," she said. "For I have come into a wisdom which
dismays me."

He nodded and looked down, calmly, at the two men who had not stirred
from the shadow of the foliage.

She rose to her feet, hesitated, slowly stretched out her hand, then,
on impulse, pressed it lightly against his lips.

"That demonstration," she said with a troubled laugh, "is to be our
limit. Good night. You will try to sleep, won't you?... And if I am
now suddenly learning to be a little shy with you--you will not
mistake me; will you?... Because it may seem silly at this late
d