ions behind
you. This is where I come for silence."

Francis obeyed her orders without remark. For a few moments, speech
seemed impossible. The darkness was so intense that although he was
acutely conscious of her presence there, only a few feet away, nothing
but the barest outline of her form was visible. The silence which she
had brought him to seek was all around them. There was just the faintest
splash of water from the spot where the stream and the river met,
the distant barking of a dog, the occasional croaking of a frog from
somewhere in the midst of the bed of lilies. Otherwise the silence and
the darkness were like a shroud. Francis leaned forward in his place.
His hands, which gripped the sides of the punt, were hot. The serenity
of the night mocked him.

"So this is your paradise," he said, a little hoarsely.

She made no answer. Her silence seemed to him more thrilling than words.
He leaned forward. His hands fell upon the soft fur which encompassed
her. They rested there. Still she did not speak. He tightened his grasp,
moved further forward, the passion surging through his veins, his breath
almost failing him. He was so near now that he heard her breathing,
saw her face, as pale as ever. Her lips were a little parted, her eyes
looked out, as it seemed to him, half in fear, half in hope. He bent
lower still. She neither shrank away nor invited him.

"Dear!" he whispered.

Her arms stole from underneath the cloak, her fingers rested upon his
shoulders. He scarcely knew whether it was a caress or whether she were
holding him from her. In any case it was too late. With a little sob of
passion his lips were pressed to hers. Even as she closed her eyes, the
scent of the lilies seemed to intoxicate him.

He was back in his place without conscious movement. His pulses were
quivering, the passion singing in his blood, the joy of her faint caress
living proudly in his memory. It had been the moment of his life, and
yet even now he felt sick at heart with fears, with the torment of her
passiveness. She had lain there in his arms, he had felt the thrill of
her body, some quaint inspiration had told him that she had sought
for joy in that moment and had not wholly failed. Yet his anxiety was
tumultuous, overwhelming. Then she spoke, and his heart leaped again.
Her voice was more natural. It was not a voice which he had ever heard
before.

"Give me a cigarette, please--and I want to go back."

He leaned over h