would be left? How little and how narrow seemed the outlook of
her life--with the world waiting for her, the world of beauty, effort,
self-sacrifice, fidelity! It was as though a flash of that summer
lightning had fled by, singeing her, taking from her all powers of
flight, burning off her wings, as off one of those pale hovering moths.
Tears started up, and trickled down her face. 'Blind!' she thought; 'how
could I have been so blind?'

Some one came down the path.

"Who's there?" she cried.

Harz stood in the doorway.

"Why did you come out?" he said. "Ah! why did you come out?" He caught
her hand; Christian tried to draw it from him, and to turn her eyes
away, but she could not. He flung himself down on his knees, and cried:
"I love you!"

In a rapture of soft terror Christian bent her forehead down to his
hand.

"What are you doing?" she heard him say. "Is it possible that you love
me?" and she felt his kisses on her hair.

"My sweet! it will be so hard for you; you are so little, so little, and
so weak." Clasping his hand closer to her face, she murmured: "I don't
care."

There was a long, soft silence, that seemed to last for ever. Suddenly
she threw her arms round his neck and kissed him.

"Whatever comes!" she whispered, and gathering her dress, escaped from
him into the darkness.

XII

Christian woke next morning with a smile. In her attitudes, her voice,
her eyes, there was a happy and sweet seriousness, as if she were
hugging some holy thought. After breakfast she took a book and sat in
the open window, whence she could see the poplar-trees guarding the
entrance. There was a breeze; the roses close by kept nodding to her;
the cathedral bells were in full chime; bees hummed above the lavender;
and in the sky soft clouds were floating like huge, white birds.

The sounds of Miss Naylor's staccato dictation travelled across the
room, and Greta's sighs as she took it down, one eye on her paper, one
eye on Scruff, who lay with a black ear flapped across his paw, and his
tan eyebrows quivering. He was in disgrace, for Dominique, coming on him
unawares, had seen him "say his prayers" before a pudding, and take the
pudding for reward.

Christian put her book down gently, and slipped through the window.
Harz was coming in from the road. "I am all yours!" she whispered. His
fingers closed on hers, and he went into the house.

She slipped back, took up her book, and waited. It seemed long before