t her, he made her sit down, she still unresisting and
flattered by his words, he fondling and kissing her, his hands caressing
her face, her ears, her hair, her neck, his head sometimes resting upon
her breast.

Maddened and scorched by the passion raging within him, lured by the
magic of the night, and impelled by the invitation of the sweet dewy
lips that seemed to cry for kisses, he strained her to his breast.

He praised her eyes, her hair, her voice, whilst he poured kisses upon
her, his fire kindling her whole being into response.

Then a thick cloud came over the face of the moon, darkening the dell,
blotting out the silvery patterns on the ground, chasing the light
shadows into dark corners; and a far-off protest of a whaup shouting to
the hills was heard in a shriller and more anxious note that had
something of alarm in it; the burn seemed to bicker more loudly in its
anxiety to hurry on out into the open moor; and the scents and perfumes
of the wood sank into pale ghosts of far-off memories.

When passion, red-eyed and fierce for conquest, had driven innocence
from the throne of virtue the guardian angels wept; and all their
tears, however bitter, could not obliterate the stains which marked the
progress of destruction.

At the end of the copse, when Mysie and Peter emerged, they neither
spoke nor laughed. There was shame in their downcast faces, and their
feet dragged heavily. His arm no longer encircled her waist, he did not
now praise her eyes, her hair, her figure. Lonely each felt, afraid to
look up, as if something walked between them. And far away the whaup
wheepled in protest, the burn still grumbled, and the perfumes, and the
sounds of the glen and all its beauty were as if they had never existed,
and the thick cloud grew blacker over the face of the moon.

CHAPTER XIV

THE AWAKENING

Night after night for a week afterwards, Mysie lay awake till far on
into the morning. She seemed to be face to face with life's realities at
last. The silly, shallow love stories held no fascination for her. The
love affairs of "Jean the Mill Girl" could not rouse her interest. Often
she cried for hours, till exhaustion brought sleep, troubled and
unrefreshing.

She grew silent and avoided company. She sang no more at her work, and
she avoided Peter, and kept out of his way. She often compared Robert
with him now, and loved to let her mind linger on that one mad moment of
delirious joy a year ago, wh