ch Lady MacGregor had brought her, and
as she walked, the embroidery of light and shadow made it look like lace
of a lovely pattern. She stopped on the way, and, gathering a red rose
with a long stem, slipped it into her belt. It looked like a spot of
blood over her heart, as if a sword had been driven in and drawn out.
Stephen could not bear to see it there. It was like a symbol of the
wound that he was waiting to inflict.

She came to him smiling, looking very young, like a child who expects
happiness.

"Have I kept you waiting long?" she asked. Her blue eyes, with the
shadow of the trees darkening them, had a wonderful colour, almost
purple. A desperate longing to take her in his arms swept over Stephen
like a wave. He drew in his breath sharply and shut his teeth. He could
not answer. Hardly knowing what he did, he held out his hands, and very
quietly and sweetly she laid hers in them.

"Don't trust me--don't be kind to me," he said, crushing her hands for
an instant, then putting them away.

She looked up in surprise, as he stood by the fountain, very tall and
pale, and suddenly rather grim, it seemed to her, his expression out of
tune with the peace of the garden and the mood in which she had come.

"What is the matter?" she asked, simply.

"Everything. I hardly know how to begin to tell you. Yet I must. Perhaps
you'll think I shouldn't have waited till now. But there's been no
chance--at least, I----"

"No, there's been no chance for us to talk, or even to think very much
about ourselves," Victoria tried to reassure him. "Begin just as you
like. Whatever you say, whatever you have to tell, I won't
misunderstand."

"First of all, then," Stephen said, "you know I love you. Only you don't
know how much. I couldn't tell you that, any more than I could tell how
much water there is in the ocean. I didn't know myself that it was
possible to love like this, and such a love might turn the world into
heaven. But because I am what I am, and because I've done what I have
done, it's making mine hell. Wait--you said you wouldn't misunderstand!
The man who loves you ought to offer some sort of spiritual gold and
diamonds, but I've got only a life half spoiled to offer you, if you'll
take it. And before I can even ask you to take it, I'll have to explain
how it's spoiled."

Victoria did not speak, but still looked at him with that look of an
expectant, anxious child, which made him long to snatch her up and turn
his