ary
weeks and months he was alone with her; for the first time he could speak
to her freely and from his heart. He knew not what it was that had made
her send for him, or why it was that he had come. He did not remember her
note, or that she had said that she had something for him. All he knew
was, that she had sent for him, and that he was with her.

There was the gate between them, but her white soft hands were clasped
loosely together over the top of it. He took them feverishly between his
own.

"I am late--you have waited for me, dear? Oh, Vera, how glad I am to be
with you!"

There was a dangerous tenderness in his voice that frightened her. She
tried to draw away her hands.

"I had something for you, or I should not have sent--please, Captain
Kynaston--Maurice--please let my hands go."

He was alone under the star-flecked heavens with the woman he loved,
there was all the witchery of the pale moonlight about her, all the
sweet perfumes of the summer night to intensify the fascination of her
presence. There was a nameless glamour in the luminous dimness--a subtle
seduction to the senses in the silence and the solitude; a bird chirruped
once among the tangled roses overhead, and a soft, sighing breeze
fluttered for one instant amid its long, trailing branches. And then,
God knows how it came to pass, or what madness possessed the man;
but suddenly there was no longer any faith, or honour, or truth for
him--nothing on the face of the whole earth but Vera.

He caught her passionately in his arms, and showered upon her lips the
maddest, wildest kisses that man ever gave to woman.

For one instant she lay still upon his heart; all the fury of her misery
was at rest--all the storm of her sorrow was at peace--for one instant of
time she tasted of life's sublimest joy ere the waters of blackness and
despair closed in once more over her soul. For one instant only--then she
remembered, and withdrew herself shudderingly from his grasp.

"For God's sake, have pity upon me, Maurice!" she wailed. It was the cry
of a broken heart that appealed to his manhood and his honour more surely
and more directly than a torrent of reproach or a storm of indignation.

"Forgive me," he murmured, humbly; "I am a brute to you. I had forgotten
myself. I ought to have spared you, sweet. See, I have let you go; I will
not touch you again; but it was hard to see you alone, to be near you,
and yet to remember how we are parted. Vera, I hav