_ known me! You have been
waiting, as I have been waiting. It has been long, and we are both
tired, but now it is over, and we can forget. Our summer has begun!"
He stretched out his hand towards her.

"I've been keeping myself for you. From this moment I am yours, and all
that I have. The world would call me crazy to make such a vow to a
woman I have known in the flesh for only a few minutes, but _you_
understand! _You_ know that it is the simple, absolute truth. Give me
your hand!"

Like a homing-bird the small hand fluttered and fell, nestling softly
against his own. He pressed his lips to it in a long, sacramental kiss,
then raised himself to look into her eyes. "What is your name?"

"Eve. And yours?"

"Rupert. I am glad that you are Eve. The first woman; the only woman.
No other name could have fitted you so well. Eve! look in my eyes, and
answer what I ask. Do you trust me, Eve? Do you believe that I am
speaking the truth?"

White as a dead woman, she faced him across the shadow; the scarlet of
her lips was like a stain of blood, but as she gazed her face quivered
into an inexpressible tenderness, for on Rupert Dempster's features
nature had printed the hall-mark of truth, and no one had yet looked
into his eyes and doubted his word. The Dream Woman accepted it so
simply that she did not trouble to answer his question. "I am not worth
it," she said instead; "I am too old; too sad. It ought to have been a
lovely, radiant girl who could have given you her youth."

"I have thought of her like that," he answered simply, "but I see now
that it could not have been. I needed more. She could not have
satisfied me, if she had not suffered. I should have missed the
greatest joy of all, if she had not needed my comfort."

"I wish I were beautiful!" she sighed again. "She should have been
beautiful to be worthy of you. I wish I were beautiful!"

"Are you not beautiful?" he asked her. "It is strange; I had thought so
much of how you would look, but when our eyes met I forgot all that. We
belong; that is everything. The beginning and the end. You are Eve."

"Ah, you are good!" she sighed. "You are good! I did not know there
were such men in the world... It is true, Rupert. You must have been
with me in my dreams, for there is nothing new about you, nothing
strange. I know your face as I know my own, and it is rest to be with
you--rest and peace. It must have been meant that we should m