ture that had felt in time the first
touch of the snare. This elusiveness, this sudden recoil from his
contact, sobered him. What he might have done, had she remained a
moment longer in his arms, must be forever a matter of conjecture with
him now; but the intoxication vanished like a vapor from his mind,
leaving a keen vision of the situation in its uncoloured reality.
There arose within him a certain sense of shame that he had given so
much and received, as yet, nothing in kind. He had passed that period
of youth when a stolen kiss seems the acme of love's adventure. Such a
theft on his part, irrespective of its consequences, would have left
him still unsatisfied.

The belt of sky above the stream was sown thick with stars, that were
beginning to make themselves felt more clearly each moment as the
turning world gradually plunged this part of its surface into deeper
shadow. In this wan light the pathway lay dimly discernible before
them. The condition of the atmosphere was such as is best described by
the word _sublustris_, that glimmering radiance which lies somewhere
between thick darkness and such a light as is thrown by the crescent
moon. It was no longer necessary that he should guide her as before,
and as soon as she had freed herself from his embrace, she began to
take the lead.

"What a coward you must think me!" she said, with a ghostly little
laugh. "Even now I would n't dare go last. As it is, I can see ahead
and know that you are behind me."

Her confidence in his protecting power brought him scant consolation.
A spirit of dreariness seemed to rise up from the faint reflections
that floated on the stagnant water; it blew stealthily out of the
encroaching woods, and was voiced in the stuttering, tentative note of
an awakened owl. Familiarity with nature had freed him from that sense
of pursuit in the woods at night which oppresses even a stout heart
unaccustomed to loneliness, and the flight of the unexpected apparition
was sufficient proof that he had no desire to molest them. The
incident certainly offered no ground for continued uneasiness, he
reflected. Why, then, did she make so much of it? Why indeed, except
that her companion was not the one man in all the world with whom she
would choose to be there alone. The time and the place were full of
romantic suggestions, were the loved one present. That he was not
present was indicated only too clearly by the unconscious confession of
her