here once it had
thrust them out into the larger universe. Outside still lay the broad
avenues of dark where one heard strange passings; where one was in
touch with the ungoverned. The rain sifted gently from the uncharted
regions above. It was there lovers should be--there where one could
swing the shoulders and breathe deeply.

The girl snuggled uneasily closer to his side. The two pressed to the
window as though to get as far away as possible from all the man-made
furnishings about them.

"Jo," he whispered, "we oughtn't to be shut in."

She found his hand and grasped it with the strength of one who thrills
with the deeper understanding. She trembled in the grip of that love
which, at least once in a woman's life, lifts her to a higher plane
than can be reached outside a madhouse. She felt a majestic scorn of
circumstance. She was one with Nature herself,--she and her man. She
laid her hot cheek against his heart. She had not yet been kissed,
withdrawing from his lips half afraid of the dizzy heights to which
they beckoned.

"Let's get back into the dark, Jo," he whispered again, drawing her
towards him; "back where I found you, Jo. I want to get outside once
more--with you. I want to be all alone with you once more."

"David! David!" she cried joyously, "I know."

"I don't want to start life with you from here. I want to start from
where we stood before the fire all wet. It was there I found you."

"Yes! Yes!" she answered, scarcely able to get her breath.

"It was meant for us to begin there. We were turned aside for a little
into strange paths, but we'll go back now. Shall we?"

"Now," she panted. "Let us start now."

"Come," he said.

They hurried out of the room and down the broad marble stairs to the
hotel foyer as though fearing something was behind them to seize and
hold them prisoner. The smug, well-dressed men and women who were
lounging there staring listlessly at the rain, glanced up with a
quicker interest in life at sight of their flushed cheeks and eager
eyes. They caught in them the living fire which in their own breasts
was ash-covered by the years.

The man at the swinging doors straightened at their approach.

"Shall I get you an umbrella, sir?"

"No," answered Wilson, with a smile.

"It is raining hard, sir?"

"Yes, it is raining, thank God."

They moved out upon the steps and the carriage porter put his whistle
to his lips. Wilson shook his head and gripped the arm of the ex