ther, and the thing was settled. He brought
her an emerald ring, of which she was very proud.

Her people treated her now with a little distance, as if she
had already left them. They left her very much alone.

She went with him for the three days in the country house
near Oxford. It was delicious, and she was very happy. But the
thing she remembered most was when, getting up in the morning
after he had gone back quietly to his own room, having spent the
night with her, she found herself very rich in being alone, and
enjoying to the full her solitary room, she drew up her blind
and saw the plum trees in the garden below all glittering and
snowy and delighted with the sunshine, in full bloom under a
blue sky. They threw out their blossom, they flung it out under
the blue heavens, the whitest blossom! How excited it made
her.

She had to hurry through her dressing to go and walk in the
garden under the plum trees, before anyone should come and talk
to her. Out she slipped, and paced like a queen in fairy
pleasaunces. The blossom was silver-shadowy when she looked up
from under the tree at the blue sky. There was a faint scent, a
faint noise of bees, a wonderful quickness of happy morning.

She heard the breakfast gong and went indoors.

"Where have you been?" asked the others.

"I had to go out under the plum trees," she said, her face
glowing like a flower. "It is so lovely."

A shadow of anger crossed Skrebensky's soul. She had not
wanted him to be there. He hardened his will.

At night there was a moon, and the blossom glistened ghostly,
they went together to look at it. She saw the moonlight on his
face as he waited near her, and his features were like silver
and his eyes in shadow were unfathomable. She was in love with
him. He was very quiet.

They went indoors and she pretended to be tired. So she went
quickly to bed.

"Don't be long coming to me," she whispered, as she was
supposed to be kissing him good night.

And he waited, intent, obsessed, for the moment when he could
come to her.

She enjoyed him, she made much of him. She liked to put her
fingers on the soft skin of his sides, or on the softness of his
back, when he made the muscles hard underneath, the muscles
developed very strong through riding; and she had a great thrill
of excitement and passion, because of the unimpressible hardness
of his body, that was so soft and smooth under her fingers, that
came to her with such absolute servi