gain the quiet garden lying sleeping before her in the
moonlight, and felt as if God must be very far away. She was very
terribly alone that night.

The impulse came to her to pass out into the dewy stillness, and she
obeyed it, scarcely knowing what she did. Over the silver grass,
ghost-like, she moved. It was as if a voice had called her. On to the
lilac trees with their burden of fragrant blossoms, where the thrush
had raised his song of rapture, where she had faced that first fiery
ordeal of love.

She reached the bench where she had sat that afternoon. There was not a
leaf that stirred. The nightingale's song sounded away in the distance.
The midnight peace lay like a shroud upon all things. But suddenly fear
stabbed her, piercing every nerve to quivering activity. She knew--how,
she could not have said--that she was no longer alone.

She stood quite still, but the beating of her heart rose quick and
insistent in her ears, like the beat of a drum. Swift came the conviction
that it was no inner impulse that had brought her hither. She had obeyed
a voice that called.

For many seconds she stood motionless, not breathing, not daring to turn
her head. Then, as her strength partially returned, she took two steps
forward to the seat under the lilac tree, and, her hand upon the back of
it, she spoke.

"Nap!"

He came, gliding like a shadow behind her. Slowly she turned and
faced him.

He was still in riding-dress. She heard again the faint jingle of his
spurs. Yet the moonlight shone strangely down upon him, revealing in him
something foreign, something incongruous, that she marvelled that she had
never before noticed. The fierce, dusky face with its glittering eyes and
savage mouth was oddly unfamiliar to her, though she knew it all by
heart. In imagination she clothed him with the blanket and moccasins of
Capper's uncouth speech; and she was afraid.

She did not know how to break the silence. The heart within her was
leaping like a wild thing in captivity.

"Why are you here?" she said at last, and she knew that her voice shook.

He answered her instantly, with a certain doggedness. "I want to know
what Capper has been saying to you."

She started almost guiltily. Her nerves were on edge that night.

"You may as well tell me," he said coolly. "Sooner or later I am
bound to know."

With an effort she quieted her agitation. "Then it must be later," she
said. "I cannot stay to talk with you now."

"Why n