ittle
note of happiness hurt incredibly.

"Nan--wake up!" he urged gently.

She woke then--came back to a full sense of her surroundings.

"You, Peter?" she murmured surprisedly. She made an effort to sit up,
then sank back against the wall, uttering a sharp cry of distress.

"Where are you hurt?" asked Mallory with quick anxiety.

She shook her head at him, smiling reassuringly.

"I'm not hurt. I'm only stiff. You'll have to help me up, Peter."

He stooped and raised her, and at last she stood up, ruefully rubbing
the arm which had been curled behind her head while she slept.

"My arm's gone to sleep. It's all pins and needles!" she complained.

Slung over his shoulders Peter carried an extra wrap for her. Whatever
had happened, whether she were hurt or merely stranded somewhere, he
knew she would not be warmly enough clad to meet the sudden coolness of
the evening.

"You must be nearly perished with cold--asleep up here! Put this on,"
he said quickly.

"No, really"--she pushed aside the woollen coat he tendered. "I'm not
cold. It was quite sheltered here under this wall."

"Put it on," he repeated quietly. "Do as I tell you--little pal."

At that she yielded and he helped her on with the coat, fastening it
carefully round her.

"And now tell me what possessed you to go to sleep up here?" he
demanded.

In a few words she related what had happened, winding up:

"Afterwards, I suppose I must have fainted. Oh!"--with a shiver of
remembrance--"It was simply ghastly! I've never felt giddy in my life
before--and hope I never may again! It's just as if the bottom of the
world had fallen out and left you hanging in mid-air! . . . I knew I
couldn't face the climb down again, so--so I just went to sleep. I
thought some of you would be sure to come to look for me."

"You knew I should come," he said, a sudden deep insistence in his
voice. "Nan, didn't you _know_ it?"

She lifted her head.

"Yes. I think--I think I knew you would come, Peter," she answered
unsteadily.

The moonlight fell full upon her--upon a white, strained face with
passionate, unkissed lips, and eyes that looked bravely into his,
refusing to shirk the ultimate significance which underlay his question.

With a stifled exclamation he swept her up into his arms and his mouth
met hers in the first kiss that had ever passed between them--a kiss
which held infinite tenderness, and the fierce passion that is part of
love, and