e took her lovely, pale hands. There was no shame to
her glance, nothing but a wonderful frankness, her eyes going to his
like brave winged things.

"Claire-Anne, I want to ask you something."

"Yes ... Lover...."

"Claire-Anne, when will you marry me?"

Her hands never quivered, but he was aware that her mouth did, in the
high diluted starlight.

"Why do you want to marry me? Is it because ...? Do you feel bound?...
or ... just why?"

"I want to be with you, Claire-Anne."

"Then--dearest, does it matter to go before the mayor and arrange about
property? And to go before a priest and make promises--to God!... Sit
down, lover; sit down with me here, in the dusk, under the tree."

She still clasped both his hands. He might have been talking to some
beautiful disembodied spirit, as Pontius Pilate was a poor
panic-stricken spirit, or to something he had conjured out of his head,
but for her firm, warm hands. To-night it was she had strength....

"Dearest, promises are so easy to make. I have made promises, oh, so
many promises!... And life or destiny.... And when you can't keep them,
your heart breaks. You know nothing of me--Shane...."

"I don't want to know; I just want you, Claire-Anne!"

"You must know something. I was just a girl, well brought up, well
educated.... I dreamed of being a great actress. I was an actress, but I
was ... _manquee_ ... didn't succeed, get success.... And then I
married, and my husband died.... And here I am.... And there are other
things you mustn't know.... Not that they are dear to me; oh, no!... but
you must never hear them.... O Shane, if seven years ago.... But Destiny
or life wouldn't let us. And now we can only cheat him, and that only
for a while.... Because Destiny is all-seeing and jealous and cruel....
Only for a while, a sweet while...."

"But, Claire-Anne, I don't understand--"

"Don't understand, don't, my lover. Don't anything.... Only let me give
all I have, can give to you, and let me take what you care to give in
return, only that.... O Shane, we are two people in a dark wood, and it
is lonely and terrifying.... And we have met, and our hands ... _se sont
serrees_ ... gripped and held.... And we aren't lonely any more, or
afraid. And you have a picture in your mind of me, a beautiful, warm
picture.... But if the night passed, and we came to the meadow-lands....
O Shane, don't let's go into the light--not into the open, not into the
light.... Oh, no! no!"

"