to the attraction of the
roads that wound in and out through the orchards, where so many times he
had dreamed and hoped.

The spectacle was not new to Rafael. Every year he had watched that
fertile plain come to life at the touch of Springtime, cover itself with
flowers, fill the air with perfumes; and yet, that night, as he beheld
the vast mantle of orange-blossoms that had settled over the fields, and
was gleaming in the moonlight like a fall of snow, he felt himself
completely in control of an infinitely sweet emotion.

The orange-trees, covered from trunk to crown with white, ivory-smooth
flowerets, seemed like webs of spun glass, the vegetation of one of
those fantastic snow-mantled landscapes that quiver sometimes in the
glass spheres of paper-weights. The perfume came in continuous,
successive waves, rolling out upon the infinite with a mysterious
palpitation, transfiguring the country, imparting to it a feeling of
supernaturalness--the vision of a better world, of a distant planet
where men feed on perfume and live in eternal poetry. Everything was
changed in this spacious love-nest softly lighted by a great lantern of
mother-of-pearl. The sharp crackling of the branches sounded in the deep
silence like so many kisses; the murmur of the river became the distant
echo of passionate love-making, hushed voices whispering close to the
loved one's ears words tremulous with adoration. From the canebrake a
nightingale was singing softly, as if the beauty of the night had
subdued its plaintive song.

How good it was to be alive! The blood tingled more rapidly, more hotly,
through the body! Every sense seemed sharper, more acute; though that
landscape imposed silence with its pale wan beauty, just as certain
emotions of intense joy are tasted with a sense of mystic shrinking!

Rafael followed the usual path. He had turned instinctively toward the
Blue House.

The shame of his disgrace still smarted raw within him. Had he met
Leonora now in the middle of the road he would have recoiled in childish
terror; but he would not meet her at such an hour. That reflection gave
him strength to walk on. Behind him, over the roofs of the city, the
tolling of a clock rolled. Midnight! He would go as far as the wall of
her orchard, enter if that were possible, stand there a few moments in
silent humility before the house, looking up adoringly at the windows
behind which Leonora lay sleeping.

It would be his farewell! The whim h