nodded, still looking.

"Then this is mine--all this night, this good night. Come."

On the dry bracken, a little way from the roadside, he spread his coat
to make a resting-place for her.

"Now," she cried, "tell me."

"This is not right, Helen," and then--

"I care not for right," she cried, and her laughing came again, but he
waved her words aside.

"It will be only days now and you will be the wife of Hugh."

"No--no--no," she clasped her arms round herself. "All this will be
his, but my heart--my heart will be waiting, but this one night my
heart is mine. See," she cried, "he beat--beat--beat for joy. Once I
tell you I will forget my convent ways, and I will make you forget.
See, my mother love one man and marry another, and I am born, and all
in me cry for that hill man--it is the cry from my mother in me."

Her hand was holding his arm. "Hugh tells me you will go to America
with Margaret. It is not true--tell me."

"It is true, Helen," said Bryde; "I am loving her for that, God bless
her."

"Ah, but will not Helen be blessed a little too," said the lass, and
for the first time there were tears in her eyes, and one great drop
fell like a white pearl in the moonlight. "Dear, this is not you, so
calm--that is like Hugh,--you are cold. Why do I cry and you not
comfort me?" She pouted her lips. "One kiss, and I will remember
always."

"One kiss," said Bryde, laughing, "and I will never be forgetting."
And at that they laughed.

"Ah, now it is Bryde--come, we will go to the horses," and she sprang
to her feet.

With the serving-man at his mother's door she had a word--

"You will come home in the morning--to-night you will stay with your
mother."

On the road, with Bryde mounted alongside of her on the servant's
beast, she set spurs to her horse Hillman, and he reared, and as he
pawed in the air she laughed, and she pointed with her whip
outstretched--

"Take me over that hill, and we will not come back ever, ever again."

And after the first mad gallop--

"I will tell you--you love Margaret, why--because Margaret is here
always since you were ver' little boy, always Margaret. . . ."

"Helen, I am loving Margaret because--I will not can tell why, but
there is peace and a great happiness in me when she is near me."

"I understand; it is that so great calm--me, I would kill you if you
love me and become cold; but she--she would smile and her heart be
breaking."

"I am thinking that