sat in silence, hearing each
other's breath, feeling each pulse that beat in the other's throat and
breast.

There had been a long silence when the last star of Orion slid over the
horizon, followed by my impatient eyes. I looked at my watch. I hardly
know why I did it then. It was an involuntary action rather than a
conscious one. I did not say anything as I replaced it, but she glanced
sharply at me, and I saw her lips whitened.

I knew the intense excitement that was moving her, it spoke to me in
every line of her form--in her eyes, torn wide open by it, in the faint
gleam of sweat that showed on the white forehead. I was not blind to
it, but the tumult within me, made all the greater by the sight of it,
left me insensible to its danger for her.

She got up from where we were sitting, and began to walk restlessly
round the table. I wheeled my chair slightly round so that I could
watch her. Nothing struck me particularly as I did so except the
extreme grace and attraction in the moving form. The heavy silk skirt
dragged backwards and forwards over the carpet almost soundless, the
moonlight and gaslight alternately gleaming on its folds. Each time
that she came between me and the table my eyes followed with dizzy
delight the soft side curve of her breast, the lines of the exquisite
waist, the white idle hand that sometimes touched the edge of my chair
arm, sometimes not, as she passed. One of these times I caught it and
detained her, and looked up at her face, but the light was behind her,
and only fell on the bright hair.

"Why do you walk about so?" I asked.

"I don't know. Victor, I feel very strange. I hope nothing is going to
happen. I never felt quite like this before;" and she broke her hand
loose from me and passed on.

I sprang up and followed her, and put my arm round her.

"Going to happen, dearest! What do you mean? Do you feel ill?"

I looked at her. She was very white, and her lips were parted and pale.
There was a distressed and strangely absent look upon her face which
startled me, though I had no clue to its significance.

"Yes, very ill," she answered, her eyes wandering away from my anxious
ones looking down at her, as we stood for a moment together.

Then she gently pushed away my arm and continued her walk.

"You know my heart always does beat and hurt if I am very happy, or
very excited, or any thing, but it's never been quite so bad as this
before." And then, catching the distress u