darkness. Tendrils of flowering plants
caught at her with twining fingers. A heavily scented waxen flower,
pallid as the face of a lost soul, stooped and kissed her from a
balcony as she passed. The young trees were like slim girls bowing to
each other with fantastic grace; the big trees stood together "terrible
as an army with banners," raging furiously in an uproar like the
banging of a thousand breakers upon a brazen beach. The sky was full
of wrack, with a snatch of moon flying across it, and a scattering of
lost stars.

She felt more alive and vital than ever in her life before. The
clamour of the storm seemed to be in her veins as well as in her ears.
She was glad with a wild, exultant happiness of which she had never
dreamed, when she found herself snatched by strong arms and held close,
close. The maelstrom whirled about her, but she was clasped safe in a
sheltered place. Sarle kissed her with long, silent kisses. There was
no need for words, their lips told the tale to each other. It seemed
to her that her nature expanded into the vastness of the sea and the
wind and the stars, and became part with them. . . . But all the while
she was conscious of being just a slight, trembling girl held close
against a man's heart--the right man, and the right heart! She had
come across the sea to find him, and Africa had given them to each
other. She lost count of time and place and terror. The burden of her
trouble mercifully left her. She remembered only that she and Vereker
Sarle loved each other and were here alone together in this
wind-wracked wilderness of perfumed darkness and mystery. Her ears and
mind were closed to everything but his whispering words:

"My darling, my darling . . . I have waited for you all my life . . .
women have been nothing to me because I knew you were somewhere in the
world. I have crossed the veld and the seas a thousand times looking
for you, and have found you at last! I will never let you go."

He kissed her throat and her eyes. More than ever her whiteness shone
in the gloom with the luminousness of a pearl.

"Your beauty makes me tremble," he whispered in her hair. "Darling,
say that you love me and will give yourself to me for ever."

"I love you, Vereker. . . ."

"Call me Kerry."

"I love you, Kerry. I give myself to you."

She rejoiced in her beauty, because it was a precious gift to him.

"You don't know what you mean to me, Diana--a star dropped out