ing a
last good-night to the sun. The monstrous shadows of the great forest
trees were going to sleep in the earth for another night. While the
daylight was fading, the girl sat relaxed against the rocks, her
unfathomable eyes contemplating the purple-spanned lake. She had drifted
into a reverie ... blissfully dreaming, with Frederick the foremost
figure of her dreams. The solemn descent of night ever signified the
mystery of his love to her. Now, from the fullness of her unalloyed joy,
she glanced up at the sky and blessed the whole world. In imagination
she deciphered the words the stars were forming. Stretched from pole to
pole, they lettered the heavens with the wonders of infinitude. In a
diadem of gold, "God is love" was written; from the unsearchable north
to the south where in their turn the slender rimming clouds sent it on
to the world beyond. "God is love," whispered the swaying trees, and
"God is love" came softly to the ear of the sensitive girl, as an echo
is flung back from the rocks and is sent home to its maker.

And even as Tess dreamed, the passion stars in their invisible courses
bent toward her. Impulsively she lifted her arms upward toward those
twinkling participants of her secret, emblems of the immeasurable glory
of her love for Frederick. By a simple turn, she could see the tree of
her old-time fancies, the familiar figure in the tall pine, with
swaying, majestic head and beckoning arms.

At that moment, she perceived Frederick making his way along the ragged
rocks. She could hear her heart's blood pulsing madly, striking at her
wrists, throbbing at her temples, making a race the length of her
quivering body. Now, she could see him plainly in the dim light, and a
smile deepened the dimple at each corner of her mouth. An indefinable
shyness kept her from running to him to tell her glad tidings. But what
made him walk so slowly and with hanging head? It wasn't like Frederick.
Something unusual had happened or he would not lag so in coming to her.

She was even more mystified at the peculiarity of his greeting. With
nerves as tautly drawn as fiddle strings, she remained very still. In
his own time he would tell her all about it. She lifted her arms, but
Frederick, unheeding, sank to the rocks beside her. She laid her hand
on his, expressing her love to him by the simple contact.

"Don't!" he said shortly. He drew away from the caressing fingers
impatiently. "I've come to tell you something."