. . .
Shall I sit here, at my lord's feet?"

"Sit where you will, but close; and kiss me first. You have not kissed
me yet--and it is our wedding day. Our wedding feast! O Ruth--Ruth, my
love!"

"Our wedding feast! . . . Could it be better! O my dear, dear lord!
. . . But I'll not kiss you yet."

"Why, Ruth?"

"Why, sir, because I will not--and that's a woman's reason.
Afterwards--but not now! You boasted of your hunger. What has become
of it?"

They ate for a while in silence. The stream roared at their feet.
Above them, in the gap of the hills, Jupiter already blazed, and as the
last of the light faded, star after star came out to keep him company.

He praised her roasting of the partridges. "To-morrow," she answered,
"you shall take your gun and get me game. We must be good providers.
To-morrow--"

"To-morrow--and for ever and ever--" He poured wine and drank it
slowly.

"Ah, look up at the heavens! And we two alone. Is this not best,
after all? Was I not right?"

"Perhaps," he answered after a pause. "It is good, at all events."

"To-morrow we will explore; and when this place tires us--but my lord
has not praised it yet--"

"Must I make speeches?"

"No. When this place tires us, we will strike camp and travel up
through the pass. It may be we shall find boatmen on the upper waters,
and a canoe. But for some days, O my love, let these only woods be
enough for us!"

Their dessert of fruit eaten, she arose and turned to the business of
washing-up. He would have helped; but she mocked him, having hidden his
shoes. "You are to rest quiet, and obey!"

Before setting to work she brought him coffee and a roll of
tobacco-leaf, and held a burning stick for him while he lit and inhaled.

For twenty minutes, perhaps, he watched her, stretched on the rock,
resting on his elbow, his hunger appeased, his whole frame fatigued, but
in a delicious weariness, as in a dream.

Far down the valley the full moon thrust a rim above the massed oaks and
hemlocks. It swam clear, and he called to her to come and watch it.

She did not answer. She had slipped away to the house--as he supposed
to restore the plates to their shelves. Apparently it took her a long
while. . . . He called again to her.

The curtain of the doorway was lifted and she stood on the threshold,
all in white, fronting the moon.

"Will my lord come into his house?"

Her voice thrilled down to him. . . . Then she remember