ered up each gold thread of the straying tresses, blushing, defiant.
He also, he drew back. But I knew all then. I had no need to wait
longer; I had achieved. Rose loved me. Rose had loved me from that first
day.--You scarcely hear what I say, I talk so low and fast? Well, no
matter, dear, you wouldn't care.--For a moment that gaze continued, then
the lids fell, the face grew utterly white. He rose, flung the book,
crushed and torn, upon the floor, went out, speaking no word to me, nor
greeting Louise in the next room. Could he have seen her? No. I, only,
had that. For, as I drew from his arm, a meteoric crimson, shooting
across the pale face bent over work there, flashed upon me, and then a
few great tears, like sudden thunder-drops, falling slowly and wetting
the heavy fingers. The long mirror opposite her reflected the interior
of the alcove parlor. No,--he could not have seen, he must have felt
her.

I wonder whether I should have cared, if I had never met him any
more,--happy in this new consciousness. But in the afternoon he
returned, bright and eager.

"Are you so very busy, dear Yone," he said, without noticing Lu, "that
you cannot drive with me to-day?"

Busy! In five minutes I whirled down the avenue beside him. I had not
been Yone to him before. How quiet we were! he driving on, bent forward,
seeing out and away; I leaning back, my eyes closed, and, whenever a
remembrance of that instant at noon thrilled me, a stinging blush
staining my cheek. I, who had believed myself incapable of love, till
that night on the balcony, felt its floods welling from my spirit,--who
had believed myself so completely cold, was warm to my heart's core.
Again that breath fanned me, those lips touched mine, lightly, quickly.

"Yone, my Yone!" he said. "Is it true? No dream within dream? Do you
love me?"

Wistful, longing, tender eyes.

"Do I love you? I would die for you!"

* * * * *

Ah, me! If the July days were such, how perfect were the August and
September nights! their young moon's lingering twilight, their full
broad bays of silver, their interlunar season! The winds were warm about
us, the whole earth seemed the wealthier for our love. We almost lived
upon the river, he and I alone,--floating seaward, swimming slowly up
with late tides, reaching home drenched with dew, parting in passionate
silence. Once he said to me,--

"Is it because it is so much larger, more strange and beautif