see him!" The words spoke themselves in her head.
But when she had hurried out of the enclosure walled in by the cactus
hedge, the brilliant moonlight seemed to pierce her brain, and make a
cold, calm appeal to her reason.

"You can't tell him what you have heard," it said. "He would be
humiliated. Or"--the thought was sharp as a gimlet--"what if he _saw_
you, and knew you were listening? What if he talked just for effect? He
is so clever! He is subtle enough for that. And wouldn't it be more
_like_ the man, than to say what he said _sincerely_?"

She stopped, and was thankful not to see her husband returning. There was
time to go back if she hurried. And she must hurry! If he had seen her in
her hammock, and made that theatrical attempt to play upon her feelings,
he would laugh at his own success if she followed him. And if he had not
seen her, and were in earnest, it would be best--indeed the only right
way--not to let him guess that the scene on the veranda steps had had a
witness.

Annesley turned to fly back faster than she had come. But passing the
cactus hedge her dress caught. It was as if the hedge sentiently took
hold of her.

She bent down to free the thin white material; and suddenly colour blazed
up to her eyes in the rain of silver moonlight. The buds had opened since
she noticed them last.

No longer was the hedge a grim barricade of stiff, dark sticks. Each
stalk had turned into a tall, straight flame of lambent rose. From a dead
thing of dreary ugliness it had become a thing of living beauty.

Knight's allegory!

He had said, perhaps she might understand when the time came; and perhaps
not.

She _did_ understand. But she had not faith to believe that the miracle
could repeat itself in life--her life and Knight's. She shut her eyes to
the thought, and when she had freed her dress ran very fast to the house.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE THREE WORDS

Knight was generally far away long before Annesley was up in the morning,
and often he did not come in till evening. She thought that on Easter
Day, however, he would perhaps not go far. She half expected that he
would linger about the house or sit reading on the veranda; and she could
not resist the temptation to put on one of the dresses he had liked in
England.

It was a little _passe_ and old-fashioned, but he would not know this.
What he might remember was that she had worn it at Valley House.

And the wish to say something, as if accidenta