s head was light from want
of food. Every clump of bushes seemed suspicious; he began at last to
hear footsteps in every sough of wind and creak of branch. But he set
his teeth grimly, bound not to be beaten, fighting hard against sleep
and overwhelming weariness. Yet what it meant for him should he, in
spite of himself, fall asleep and be discovered there by Lady Varia's
women, none knew better than he.

"She will come! She must come!" he muttered, and kept himself awake with
that.

And she did come. After untold hours of waiting, during which he
alternately dozed and started into uneasy watchfulness through sheer
force of will, she came to him out of the scented darkness, walking
slowly, with hands hanging straight at her sides, a slim figure dimly
white. So suddenly did she appear that at first he did not move,
believing himself still drowsing. But she stopped before him; and at
once the world fell away from him, leaving him thought and memory of
nothing but that she had come to him at his call and that they were
alone together.

"I am here," she said, very low. "Didst call me, or did I dream it? And
why?"

"Because I wanted thee!" he answered, and caught her hands and kissed
them. His own hands shook as he drew her down upon the bench beside him;
he dared not trust his voice to utter what was on his tongue. She sat
beside him, leaving her hands in one of his, and he slipped his arm
about her, unrebuked. In the darkness he could not tell whether or not
her eyes were on him. Presently she spoke.

"Hast thou not a tale to tell to-night? Last night thou didst not come,
and I was lonely. All the night I did not sleep. Now I am tired--so
tired...."

Her voice drifted into silence. She yawned, quite openly, like a sleepy
child, and leaned her head slowly back against his arm. Nicanor quivered
from head to foot, and tightened his clasp about her. It was these
innocent tricks of hers, these child ways, wholly trusting, without
thought of guile, that made him mad for her, tempted him almost beyond
endurance, and yet, in their very innocence, made themselves her
strongest shield. She knew nothing, with that child's soul of hers, of
the passion which shook him at her touch, which sent his hands hot when
her fingers fluttered into his, and set his heart pounding in heavy
throbs when, as now, she leaned her cheek above it. How should she know?
Her mind was a child's mind, unawakened, even though her body was a
woman's bo