e thing. Yet I can't
tell you."

She clapped her hands over her ears. "Ah, no. I couldn't bear to listen
if you did." They sank into a trembling silence. Her black eyes, fixed
on the opposite wall, saw the shape of mountains, against the white
evening of a dark sky; the dark red circle of a peat-stained pool lying
under the shadow of a rock; the earth of a new-ploughed field over which
seagulls ambled white in heavy air, under a cloud-felted sky; and other
sombre appearances that moved the heart strangely, as if it discerned in
them proofs that the core of life was darkness. There came on her
suddenly a memory of that fierce initiatory pain which she had felt when
she first drank wine, when she first was kissed by Richard. She
remembered it with a singular lack of dismay. There ran through her on
the instant a tingling sense of pride and ambition towards all new
experience, and she leapt briskly from the bed, crying out in placid
annoyance, as if it were the only care she had, because her hair had
fallen down about her shoulders. They stood easily together in the light
of the great window, she feeling for the strayed hairpins in her head,
he looking down on the disordered glory.

"But what's that for?" he asked, pointing at the open trunk in the
middle of the floor.

Her eyes filled with tears. "I was packing to go back to Edinburgh."

"Oh, my dear, my dear!" he said solemnly. "I came near to imperilling a
perfect thing." He took her face between his hands and was going to kiss
her, but she started away from him.

"Oh, maircy! What cold hands!" she exclaimed.

"I've been out in the shed working at my motor-bicycle. It was
freezing. And I made an awful mess of it, too, because I was blind and
shaking with rage."

"You poor silly thing!" she cried lovingly. "Give me yon bits of ice!"
She took both his hands and pressed them against her warm throat.

For a little time they remained so, until her trembling became too great
for him to bear, and he whispered: "This is all it is! This is all it
is!"

"What do you mean?" she murmured.

"What you fear ... is just like this. You will comfort my whole body as
you are comforting my hands...."

She drooped, she seemed about to fall, but joy was a bright light on her
face, and she answered loudly, plangently: "Then I shall not be afraid!"
They swayed together, and she told him in earnest ecstasy: "I will marry
you any day you like." When he answered, "No, no, I will wai