s face in her hands, turned
towards the moonlight, her own in passionate shadow. "Listen," she said
quickly. "They think I came here to look for something I left in my
desk. They thought it high fun to come with me--these two. I did come to
look for something--not in my desk, but yours."

"Was it this?" he whispered, taking the myrtle from his breast. She
seized it with a light cry, putting it first to her lips and then to
his. Then clasping his face again between her soft palms, she turned it
to the window and said: "Look at them and not at me."

He did so--seeing the two figures slowly walking in the trail. And
holding her there firmly against his breast, it seemed a blasphemy to
ask the question that had been upon his lips.

"That's not all," she murmured, moving his face backwards and forwards
to her lips as if it were something to which she was giving breath.
"When we came to the woods I felt that you would be here."

"And feeling that, you brought HIM?" said Ford, drawing back.

"Why not?" she replied indolently. "Even if he had seen you, I could
have managed to have you walk home with me."

"But do you think it's quite fair? Would he like it?"

"Would HE like it?" she echoed lazily.

"Cressy," said the young man earnestly, gazing into her shadowed face.
"Have you given him any right to object? Do you understand me?"

She stopped as if thinking. "Do you want me to call him in?" she said
quietly, but without the least trace of archness or coquetry. "Would you
rather he were here--or shall we go out now and meet him? I'll say you
just came as I was going out."

What should he say? "Cressy," he asked almost curtly, "do you love me?"

It seemed such a ridiculous thing to ask, holding her thus in his arms,
if it were true; it seemed such a villainous question, if it were not.

"I think I loved you when you first came," she said slowly. "It must
have been that that made me engage myself to him," she added simply. "I
knew I loved you, and thought only of you when I was away. I came back
because I loved you. I loved you the day you came to see Maw--even when
I thought you came to tell her of Masters, and to say that you couldn't
take me back."

"But you don't ask me if I love you?"

"But you do--you couldn't help it now," she said confidently.

What could he do but reply as illogically with a closer embrace, albeit
a slight tremor as if a cold wind had blown across the open window,
passed over him. She ma