a resting place at a little eating-house and garden on the hillside
overlooking the river Inn. It is a quiet, demure, unfrequented place
among the crags, standing in from the white roadway a hundred feet or
more, clouded by gorgeous trees and sombre cliffs. It was to this
charming, romantic retreat that Brock led his fair, now tremulous
inamorata. She, too, knew that the hour for decision had come; it was in
the air, in the glint of his eyes, in the leaping of her heart. And she
knew what she would say to him, and what they would say to the world a
few hours hence. The mountains seemed to have lost their splendid frown;
they were beaming down upon her, tenderly caressing instead of bleak
and foreboding as they always had been before.

A rosy-cheeked girl came into the garden to serve them. Swift, cool
breezes were scurrying down the valley, bearing in their wake the soft
rain clouds that were soon to drench the earth and then radiantly pass
on. They were quite alone, seated in the shelter of a wide, overhanging
portico. A soft, green darkness was creeping over the mountainside,
pregnant with smell of the shower.

Constance ordered tea and a bite of something to eat for both. Brock's
gaze never left her exquisite face while she was engaged in the pretty
but rather self-conscious occupation of instructing the waitress. After
the girl had departed, he leaned forward across the little table and
said, a trifle hoarsely and disjointedly,--

"It was most appetising to watch you do that. I could live forever on
nothing but tea and sandwiches if you were to order them."

"You've said a great many silly things to me this afternoon."

"I wonder--" he stopped and lowered his voice--"I wonder if you would
call it silly if I were to tell you that I love you, very, very much."
His gloved hand dropped upon hers as she fumbled aimlessly with the menu
card; something in the very helplessness of that long slim hand drew the
strength of all his love toward it--all of this confident, arrogant love
that had come to be so sure of itself in these last days. His grey eyes,
dark with the purpose of his passion, took on a new and impelling glow;
she looked into them for an instant, the wavering smile of last resort
on her parted lips; then her lids dropped quickly and her lip trembled.

"I should still think you very silly," she said in a very low voice,
"unless--unless you _do_ love me."

His fingers closed so tightly upon hers that she