uline. The "now" prolonged its duration into
hours, it seemed; and then when she did come she was in his arms before
he knew by her step or by the rustle of her dress that she was coming.
She was in his arms as though like a moth she had floated upon a flower.

Their good night was kissed in a moment, and she was gone like a moth
that cannot stay upon the flower it visits.

Guy waited until he thought he saw her leaning from her window once
more. Then he drew close to the wall of the house and strained his eyes
to catch the farewell of her hand. As he looked up the rain began to
fall again; and in an ecstasy he glided back to Plashers Mead, adoring
the drench of his clothes and the soft sighing of the rain.

ANOTHER WINTER

DECEMBER

In the first elation of having been able to prove to Guy how exclusively
she loved him, Pauline had no misgivings about the effect upon herself
of that dark descent into the garden. It was only when Guy, urging the
success of what almost seemed disturbingly to state itself as an
experiment, begged her to go farther and take the negligible risk of
coming out with him on the river at night, that she began to doubt if
she had acted well in yielding that first small favor. The problem, that
she must leave herself to determine without a hint of its existence to
any one outside, stuck unresolved at the back of her conscience, whence
in moments of depression it would, as it were, leap forth to assail her
peace of mind. She was positive, however, that the precedent had been
unwise from whatever point of view regarded, and for a while she
resisted earnestly the arguments Guy evoked about the privileges
conferred on lovers by the customary judgment of the world.
Nevertheless, in the end she did surrender anew to his persistence, and
on two nights of dim December moonlight she escaped from the house and
floated with him unhappily upon the dark stream, turning pale at every
lean branch that stretched out from the bank, at every shadow, and at
every sound of distant dogs' barking.

Guy would not understand the falseness of this pleasure and, treating
with scorn her alarm, he used to invent excuses by which she would be
able to account for the emptiness of the room in the event of her
absence being discovered. The mere prospect of such deceit distressed
Pauline, and when she realized that even already by doing what she had
done deceit had been set on foot, she told him she could not b