he beams brought a
halo of brightest white. Another stretch of furze brought them to the
boulders above the wood on a level with the massed tree-tops. Ishmael
made Blanche put on his coat; then he sat beside her, his hand holding
the coat together under her chin.

Nestling her head against him, she closed her eyes, and with soft,
regular breathings feigned a sleep that presently became reality.
Through the starlit hour between moon-setting and sun-rising Ishmael
held her; every now and then she stirred, half woke, and, moving a
little to ease his arm, lifted the pallor of her face to his. Before the
dawn she awoke completely and began to reproach herself and him.

The time of un-self-consciousness was already over for her, and she was
once more the woman who knew how to make men love.

"Oh, how could you let me waste time sleeping? I've not been really
asleep--only drowsing. I knew I was sitting beside you all the while."

"Then it wasn't waste for you either." His lips trembled a little, and
he said nothing about his own emotions; it had been so unutterably sweet
to him to hold her, trusting, quiescent, in his arms and feel the
night-wind ruffling her hair against his cheek.

It was still dusk, though the misty blue-grey of the tree-tops was
imperceptibly changing to a more living hue, and the sky, stained a deep
rust colour, showed a molten whiteness where it touched the world's rim.
He unknowingly gripped Blanche's hand till she nearly cried out; except
as something that made beauty more beautiful he hardly knew she was
there. Slowly the miracle of dawn unfolded; down in the woods birds
lifted glad heads, the lids were raised from round, bright eyes, and
there came up to the watchers on the rocks the first faint notes that
pierced the air of the new day.

Nothing was very wide-awake as yet; all life stirred as though beneath a
film; a dim blue coverlet still lay lightly over the wood; the earth
held her breath for the moment of birth. What a waiting, what a wide
clear sense of certain expectation! The sky, naked of clouds, had become
a brightening sphere of pearliness; a deep rose gathered over the hills
and spread fanlike, licking up the ashen pallor with stabs of flame. A
livid red-gold rim sprang into being behind the hill crests, and slowly
and in state the sun swam up the molten sky. He turned to Blanche with
the tears in his eyes.

"Dearest, the sun has risen!" He drew her face to his and kissed her,
no