CHAPTER XLV.—ON MOONLIGHT AND MORALS.

SHE was his.

He felt the joy of it as she stood at the door in her beautifully fitting travelling dress.

The thought sent an exultant glow through his veins, as he looked at her from where he was standing at the hearth. (There was no “cosy corner” abomination.)

She was his.

He went forward to meet her, and put out both his hands to her.

She placed a hand in each of his.

“How delightfully warm you are,” she said. “You were standing at the fire.”

“Yes,” he said. “I was at the fire; in addition, I was also thinking that you are mine.”

“Altogether yours now,” she said looking at him with that trustful smile which should have sent him down on his knees before her, but which did not do more than cause his eyes to look at her throat instead of gazing straight into her eyes.

They seated themselves on one of the old window-seats, and talked face to face, listlessly watching the old waiter lay a white cloth on a portion of the black oak table.

When they had eaten their fish and pheasant—Harold wondered if the latter had come from the Abbeylands’ preserves, and if Archie Brown had shot it—they returned to the window-seat, and there they remained for an hour.

He had thrown all reserve to the winds. He had thrown all forethought to the winds. He had thrown all fear of God and man to the winds.

She was his.

The old waiter re-entered the room and laid on the table a flat bedroom candlestick with a box of matches.

“Can I get you anything before I go to bed, sir?” he inquired.

“I require nothing, thank you,” said Harold.

“Very good, sir,” said the waiter. “The candles in the sconces will burn for another hour. If that will not be long enough—”

“It will be quite long enough. You have made us extremely comfortable, and I wish you goodnight,” said Harold.

“Good-night, sir. Good-night, madam.”

This model servitor disappeared. They heard the sound of his shoes upon the stairs.

“At last—at last!” whispered Harold, as he put an arm on the deep embrasure of the window behind her.

She let her shapely head fall back until it rested on his shoulder. Then she looked up to his face.

“Who could have thought it?” she cried. “Who could have predicted that evening when I stood on the cliffs and sent my voice out in that wild way across the lough, that we should be sitting here to-night?”

“I knew it when I got down to the boat and drew your hands into mine by that fishing-line,” said he. “When the moon showed me your face, I knew that I had seen the face for which I had been searching all my life. I had caught glimpses of that face many times in my life. I remember seeing it for a moment when a great musician was performing an incomparable work—a work the pure beauty of which made all who listened to it weep. I can hear that music now when I look upon your face. It conveys to me all that was conveyed to me by the music. I saw it again when, one exquisite dawn, I went into a garden while the dew was glistening over everything. There came to me the faint scent of violets. I thought that nothing could be lovelier; but in another moment, the glorious perfume of roses came upon me like a torrent. The odour of the roses and the scent of the violets mingled, and before my eyes floated your face. When the moonlight showed me your face on that night beside the Irish lough I felt myself wondering if it would vanish.”

“It has come to stay,” she whispered, in a way that gave the sweetest significance to the phrase that has become vulgarized.

“It came to stay with me for ever,” he said. “I knew it, and I felt myself saying, ‘Here by God’s grace is the one maid for me.’”

He did not falter as he looked down upon her face—he said the words “God’s grace” without the least hesitancy.

The moonlight that had been glistening on the ivy of the broken arches of the ancient Priory, was now shining through the diamond panes of the window at which they were sitting. As her head lay back it was illuminated by the moon. Her hair seemed delicate threads of spun glass through which the light was shining.

One of the candles flared up for a moment in its socket, then dwindled away to a single spark and then expired.

“You remember?” she whispered.

“The seal-cave,” he said. “I have often wondered how I dared to tell you that I loved you.”

“But you told me the truth.”

“The truth. No, no; I did not love you then as I regard loving now. Oh, my Beatrice, you have taught me what ‘tis to love. There is nothing in the world but love, it is life—it is life!”

“And there are none in the world who love as you and I do.”

His face shut out the moonlight from hers. There was a long silence before she said, “It was only when you had parted from me every day that I knew what you were to me, Harold. Ah, those bitter moments! Those sad Good-byes—sad Good-nights out of the moonlight from hers. There was a long silence before she said, “It was only when you had parted from me every day that I knew what you were to me, Harold. Ah, those bitter moments! Those sad Good-byes—sad Good-nights!”

“They are over, they are over!” he cried. The lover’s triumph rang through his words. “They are over. We have come to the night when no more Good-nights shall be spoken. What do I say? No more Good-nights? You know what a poet’s heart sang—a poet over whose head the waters of passion had closed? I know the song that came from his heart—beloved, the pulses of his heart beat in every line:"=

”’Good-night! ah, no, the hour is ill

That severs those it should unite:

Let us remain together still,

Then it will be good night.=

”’ How can I call the lone night good,

Though thy sweet wishes wing its flight?

Be it not said—thought—understood;

Then it will be good night.=

”’To hearts that near each other move

From evening close to morning light,

The night is good because, oh, Love,

They never say Good-night.’”=

His whispering of the last lines was very tremulous. Her eyes were closed and her lips were parted with the passing of a sigh—a sigh that had something of a sob about it. Then both her arms were flung round his neck, and he felt her face against his. Then.... he was alone.

How had she gone?

Whither had she gone?

How long had he been alone?

He got upon his feet, and looked in a dazed way around the room.

Had it all been a dream? Was it only in fancy that she had been in his arms? Had he been repeating Shelley’s poem in the hearing of no one?

He opened a glass door by which access was had to the grounds of the old Priory, and stood, surpliced by the moonlight, beside the ruined arch where an oriel window had once been. He turned and looked at the house. It was black against the clear sky that overflowed with light, but one window above the room where he had been sitting was illuminated.

It had no drapery—he could see through it half way into the room beyond.

Just above where a silver sconce with three lighted candles hung from the wall, he could see that the black panel bore in high relief a carved Head of the Virgin, surrounded with lilies.

He kept his eyes fixed upon that carving until—until....

There came before his eyes in that room the Temptation of Saint Anthony.

His eyes became dim looking at her loveliness, shining with dazzling whiteness beneath the light of the candles.

He put his hands before his eyes and staggered to the door through which he had passed. There he stood, his breath coming in sobs, with his hand on the handle of the door.

There was not a sound in the night. Heaven and earth were breathlessly watching the struggle.

It was the struggle between Heaven and Hell for a human soul.

The man’s fingers fell from the handle of the door. He clasped his hands across the ivy of the wall and bowed his head upon them.

Only for a few moments, however. Then, with a cry of agony, he started up, and with his clasped hands over his eyes, fled—madly—blindly—away from the house.

Before he had gone far, he tripped and fell over a stone—he only fell upon his knees, but his hands were clutching at the ground.

When he recovered himself, he found that he was on his knees at the foot of an ancient prostrate Cross.

He stared at it, and some time had passed before there came from his parched lips the cry, “Christ have mercy upon me!”

He bowed his head to the Cross, and his lips touched the cold, damp stone.

This was not the kiss to which he had been looking forward.

He sprang to his feet and fled into the distance.

She was saved!

And he—he had saved his soul alive!