er things than
these to think of, becoming more and more silent as the night grew dark.
The four young people too were rather silent. There was something in
this warm night, with its sighing, and its darkness, and its stars, that
was not favourable to talk, so that presently they split into couples,
drifting a little apart.

Standing there, gripping the wall, it seemed to Harbinger that there
were no words left in the world. Not even his worst enemy could have
called this young man romantic; yet that figure beside him, the gleam
of her neck and her pale cheek in the dark, gave him perhaps the most
poignant glimpse of mystery that he had ever had. His mind, essentially
that of a man of affairs, by nature and by habit at home amongst the
material aspects of things, was but gropingly conscious that here, in
this dark night, and the dark sea, and the pale figure of this
girl whose heart was dark to him and secret, there was perhaps
something--yes, something--which surpassed the confines of his
philosophy, something beckoning him on out of his snug compound into the
desert of divinity. If so, it was soon gone in the aching of his senses
at the scent of her hair, and the longing to escape from this weird
silence.

"Babs," he said; "have you forgiven me?"

Her answer came, without turn of head, natural, indifferent:

"Yes--I told you so."

"Is that all you have to say to a fellow?"

"What shall we talk about--the running of Casetta?"

Deep down within him Harbinger uttered a noiseless oath. Something
sinister was making her behave like this to him! It was that
fellow--that fellow! And suddenly he said:

"Tell me this----" then speech seemed to stick in his throat. No! If
there were anything in that, he preferred not to hear it. There was a
limit!

Down below, a pair of lovers passed, very silent, their arms round each
other's waists.

Barbara turned and walked away towards the house.

CHAPTER XI

The days when Miltoun was first allowed out of bed were a time of
mingled joy and sorrow to her who had nursed him. To see him sitting up,
amazed at his own weakness, was happiness, yet to think that he would
be no more wholly dependent, no more that sacred thing, a helpless
creature, brought her the sadness of a mother whose child no longer
needs her. With every hour he would now get farther from her, back into
the fastnesses of his own spirit. With every hour she would be less his
nurse and comforter, more the