ing to be enshrined as a temple of the Beautiful wherein all might
worship together, each his own God.

The keen sense of its loveliness, its perfect beauty, its sublime
simplicity, stole over Nellie as she stood silently by Ned's side in the
full moonlight and gazed. Over her angry soul, tortured by the love she
hardly knew, its pure languor crept, soothing, softening. She looked up
at the silvery disc and involuntarily held out her hands to it, its
radiance overpowering her. She wrenched her eyes away from it suddenly, a
strange fearfulness leaping in her who knew no fear; the light at the
South Heads flashed before her, the convent stood out in the far
distance, a ferry-house shone white, the towers and roofs of Sydney
showed against the sky, the lights on the shipping and on the further
shore were as reflections of the stars above. And there in the water, as
in a mirror, was that glowing moon. Startled, she found herself thinking
that it would be heavenly to take Ned's hand and plunge underneath this
crystal sheet that alone separated them from peace and happiness. She
looked up again. There was the moon itself, swimming amid the twinkling
stars, full and round and white and radiant. As its rays enwrapped her
eyes, she heard the leaves rustling in melody and the wavelets rippling
in tune.

All Nature lived to her then. There was life in the very rocks under her
feet, language in the very shimmer of the waters, a music, as the
ancients dreamed in the glittering spheres that circled there in space.
The moon had something to say to her, something to tell her, something
she longed to hear and shrank from hearing. She knew she was not herself
somehow, not her old self, that it was as though she were being
bewitched, mesmerised, drawn out of herself by some strange influence,
sweet though fearful. Suddenly a distant clock struck and recalled her
wandering thoughts.

"Half-past! Half-past eleven I suppose! I thought it was later, ever so
much later. It has seemed like hours, it is so beautiful here, but we
haven't been here many minutes," she said. Adding incongruously: "Let's
go. It's getting very late." She spoke decidedly. She felt that she dare
not stay; why, she had not the least idea.

Then she heard Ned, who was standing there, rigid, except that he was
twirling his soft straw hat round and round in his fingers, say in a low
tremulous husky whisper:

"Nellie!"

Then she knew.

She was loved and she loved. T