er. She felt that it only
required a movement on her side, a touch, a word to destroy the ice that
had formed between them. If he were to go away he might never return, nay,
he would never return, of that she felt sure.

And he would go away unless she spoke. She must speak, not to-morrow in
the cold light of day when things were impossible, but now, at once, she
would say to him simply the truth, "I love you." If he were to turn away
or repulse her it would kill her. No matter, life was absolutely nothing.

She rose from her chair and was just on the point of turning to the door
when something checked her.

It was the clock of St. Michael's striking one.

One o'clock. The whole household would be in bed. He would have retired to
his room long ago--and to-morrow it would be too late.

She could never say that to him to-morrow; even now the impulse was dying
away, the strength that would have broken convention and disregarded all
things was fading in her. She had been dreaming whilst she ought to have
been doing, and the hour had passed and would never return.

She sat down again in the chair.

The moon in the cloudless sky outside cast a patch of silver on the floor,
then it shewed a silver rim gradually increasing against the sky as it
pushed its way through the night to peep in at Phyl. Leaning back in the
chair limp and exhausted, with closed eyes, one might have fancied her
dead or in a trance and the moon as if to make sure pushed on, framing
itself now fully in the window space.

The clock of St. Michael's struck two, then it chimed the quarter after
and almost on the chime Phyl sat up. It was as though she had suddenly
come to a resolve. She clasped her hands together for a moment, then she
rose, gathered up the letters and put them away, all except one which she
held in her hand as though to give her courage for what she was about to
do. She carefully extinguished the lamp and then led by the moonlight came
out on to the piazza.

Charleston was asleep under the moon; the air was filled with the scent of
night jessamine and the faint fragrance of foliage, and scarcely a sound
came from all the sleeping city beyond the garden walls and the sea beyond
the city.

As she stood with one hand on the piazza rail, suddenly, far away but
shrill, came the crowing of a cock.

She shivered as though the sound were a menace, then rigidly gliding like
a ghost escaped from the grave and warned by the cockcrow that t