to my shelter, so I
did; and it was too low for him to stand up. He had to sit down by my
side. The rain came in a little, though the tree made a thick roof, and
he put up the umbrella over my head. I told him he must come under it,
too. We were close to each other, more close than we had been on the
front seat of the car in the days when he drove with me by his
side--closer than I had ever been with him except when we danced.

I looked up at him, and he looked down at me. "Poor little girl!" he
said. "You are drenched!"

They were such simple words. Any one might have said them. But it was as
if his eyes spoke quite different things. A light shone out of them into
mine. And though I did not mean to do it, my eyes answered. I knew the
most wonderful thing! I knew that he loved me, not like a friend, but
with a great, immense, fiery love. And I think he must have known that I
loved him, for I couldn't help my eyes telling.

Oh, Adrienne, now the secret is out to you. I have loved him a long
time, loved him _dreadfully_. I have felt as if he were _me_--as if I
wasn't _there_ till he had come. Do you understand? If you do not, you
have not yet loved your cousin Marcel de Moncourt!

It seemed to me that never in my life before had I felt; and suddenly I
was crying, as his eyes held mine to his. The next instant I was in his
arms. It was not till then I thought of my promise to another man. And
to tell the truth, as I wish to do to you, it was two or three minutes
or maybe more that I did not think.

Then I took my arms down from his neck (yes, I had put them there, as if
I were in a dream, when his arms went round my waist and he kissed my
cheek, all wet with cold rain and hot tears). It was only my cheek,
because I turned my lips away, not out of goodness or because of being
loyal to somebody else, I am afraid, but just because it seemed so great
and wonderful to be in his arms I could bear no more.

"I forgot!" I said. "I forgot that I have given my word."

"I forgot, too," he said. "But now it is irrevocable. Your word can't
stand. You love me, and nothing shall make me let you go. Don't you know
that?"

I told him that if he loved me, I did not want to go. I was in the midst
of saying that--though I did not want to--I _must_; but he interrupted
to tell how he loved me. And, Adrienne, if I had never been happy for
one single hour in my life till then, and could never be happy after,
still I should have been glad