close to him, to his breast. Then,
for a few seconds, he went utterly to sleep, asleep and sealed
in the darkest sleep, utter, extreme oblivion.

From which he came to gradually, always holding her warm and
close upon him, and she as utterly silent as he, involved in the
same oblivion, the fecund darkness.

He returned gradually, but newly created, as after a
gestation, a new birth, in the womb of darkness. Aerial and
light everything was, new as a morning, fresh and newly-begun.
Like a dawn the newness and the bliss filled in. And she sat
utterly still with him, as if in the same.

Then she looked up at him, the wide, young eyes blazing with
light. And he bent down and kissed her on the lips. And the dawn
blazed in them, their new life came to pass, it was beyond all
conceiving good, it was so good, that it was almost like a
passing-away, a trespass. He drew her suddenly closer to
him.

For soon the light began to fade in her, gradually, and as
she was in his arms, her head sank, she leaned it against him,
and lay still, with sunk head, a little tired, effaced because
she was tired. And in her tiredness was a certain negation of
him.

"There is the child," she said, out of the long silence.

He did not understand. It was a long time since he had heard
a voice. Now also he heard the wind roaring, as if it had just
begun again.

"Yes," he said, not understanding. There was a slight
contraction of pain at his heart, a slight tension on his brows.
Something he wanted to grasp and could not.

"You will love her?" she said.

The quick contraction, like pain, went over him again.

"I love her now," he said.

She lay still against him, taking his physical warmth without
heed. It was great confirmation for him to feel her there,
absorbing the warmth from him, giving him back her weight and
her strange confidence. But where was she, that she seemed so
absent? His mind was open with wonder. He did not know her.

"But I am much older than you," she said.

"How old?" he asked.

"I am thirty-four," she said.

"I am twenty-eight," he said.

"Six years."

She was oddly concerned, even as if it pleased her a little.
He sat and listened and wondered. It was rather splendid, to be
so ignored by her, whilst she lay against him, and he lifted her
with his breathing, and felt her weight upon his living, so he
had a completeness and an inviolable power. He did not interfere
with her. He did not even know her. It wa