his, he is content."

Thus she gave herself completely; gathering him into the shelter of her
love; and her generous heart expanded to the greatness of the gift.
Then the mother in her awoke and realised how much of the maternal
flows into the love of a true woman when she understands how largely
the child-nature predominates in the man in love, and how the very
strength of his need of her reduces to unaccustomed weakness the strong
nature to which she has become essential.

Jane pressed her hands upon her breast. "Garth," she whispered, "Garth,
I UNDERSTAND. My own poor boy, it was so hard to you to be sent away
just then. But you had had all--all you wanted, in those few wonderful
moments, and nothing can rob you of that fact. And you have made me SO
yours that, whatever the future brings for you and me, no other face
will ever be hidden here. It is yours, and I am yours--to-night, and
henceforward, forever."

Jane leaned her forehead on the window-sill. The moonlight fell on the
heavy coils of her brown hair. The scent of the magnolia blooms rose in
fragrance around her. The song of a nightingale purled and thrilled in
an adjacent wood. The lonely years of the past, the perplexing moments
of the present, the uncertain vistas of the future, all rolled away.
She sailed with Garth upon a golden ocean far removed from the shores
of time. For love is eternal; and the birth of love frees the spirit
from all limitations of the flesh.

* * * * *

A clock in the distant village struck midnight. The twelve strokes
floated up to Jane's window across the moonlit park. Time was once
more. Her freed spirit resumed the burden of the body.

A new day had begun, the day upon which she had promised her answer to
Garth. The next time that clock struck twelve she would be standing
with him in the church, and her answer must be ready.

She turned from the window without closing it, drew the curtains
closely across, switched on the electric light over the writing-table,
took off her evening gown, hung up bodice and skirt in the wardrobe,
resolutely locking the door upon them. Then she slipped on a sage-green
wrapper, which she had lately purchased at a bazaar because every one
else fled from it, and the old lady whose handiwork it was seemed so
disappointed, and, drawing a chair near the writing-table, took out her
diary, unlocked the heavy clasp, and began to read. She turned the
pages slowly, pausing h