ough love'? Does it mean what we have
done?--because I am married? Would people think our souls lost--if they
knew?"

"No, you blessed child!"

"Well, how can--"

"It's a lie anyway," he said. "Nothing is lost through love. It is
something very different they mean."

"Yes," she said calmly, "something quite inconceivable, like 'Faust' and
'The Scarlet Letter,' ... I _thought_ that was what they meant!"

Brooding over him, silent, pensive, clear eyes fearlessly meeting his,
she drifted into guiltless retrospection.

"After all," she said, "except for letting everybody know that we belong
to each other this is practically like marriage. Look at that honeymoon
up there, Garry.... If, somehow, they could think we are engaged, and
would let us alone for the rest of our lives, it would not matter....
Except I should like to have a house alone with you."

And she stooped, resting her cheek lightly against his, eyes vaguely
sweet in the moonlight.

"I love you so," she murmured, as though to herself, "and there seems no
end to it. It is such a hopeless sequence when yesterday's love becomes
to-day's adoration and to-morrow's worship. What am I to do? What is the
use of saying I am not free to love you, when I do?" She smiled
dreamily. "I was silly enough to think it impossible once. Do you
remember?"

"You darling!" he whispered, adoring her innocence. Then as he lay, head
cradled on her knees, looking up at her, all unbidden, a vision of the
future in its sharp-cut ominous desolation flashed into his vision--the
world without her!--the endless stretch of time--youth with no meaning,
effort wasted, attainment without desire, loneliness, arid, terrible
days unending.

"It is too--too senseless!" he breathed, stumbling to his feet as the
vague, scarcely formulated horror of it suddenly turned keen and bit
into him as he began to realise for the first time something of what it
threatened.

"What is it, Garry?" she asked in gentle concern, as he stood looking
darkly at her. "Is it time to go? You are tired, I know." She rose and
opened the great glass doors. "You poor tired boy," she whispered,
waiting for him. And as he did not stir: "What is the matter, Garry?"

"Nothing. I am trying to understand that our winter is ended."

She nodded. "Mother and Gray and Cecile and I go North in April.... I
wish we might stay through May--that is, if you--" She looked at him in
silent consternation. "Where will _you_ be!"

H