t
controlled infinite space--advanced and rushed and slackened speed
again--united and finally tore asunder to reveal the waning moon,
honey-coloured and mysterious, rising as if from an invisible ocean far
away.

The wan pale light spread over the wide stretch of country, throwing
over it as it spread dull tones of indigo and of blue. Here and there
sparse, stunted trees with fringed gaunt arms bending to prevailing
winds proclaimed the neighbourhood of the sea.

Marguerite gazed on the picture which the waning moon had so suddenly
revealed; but she gazed with eyes that knew not what they saw. The moon
had risen on her right--there lay the east--and the coach must have been
travelling due north, whereas Crecy...

In the absolute silence that reigned she could perceive from far, very
far away, the sound of a church clock striking the midnight hour; and
now it seemed to her supersensitive senses that a firm footstep was
treading the soft earth, a footstep that drew nearer--and then nearer
still.

Nature did pause to listen. The wind was hushed, the night-birds in
the forest had gone to rest. Marguerite's heart beat so fast that its
throbbings choked her, and a dizziness clouded her consciousness.

But through this state of torpor she heard the opening of the carriage
door, she felt the onrush of that pure, briny air, and she felt a long,
burning kiss upon her hands.

She thought then that she was really dead, and that God in His infinite
love had opened to her the outer gates of Paradise.

"My love!" she murmured.

She was leaning back in the carriage and her eyes were closed, but she
felt that firm fingers removed the irons from her wrists, and that a
pair of warm lips were pressed there in their stead.

"There, little woman, that's better so--is it not? Now let me get hold
of poor old Armand!"

It was Heaven, of course, else how could earth hold such heavenly joy?

"Percy!" exclaimed Armand in an awed voice.

"Hush, dear!" murmured Marguerite feebly; "we are in Heaven you and I--"

Whereupon a ringing laugh woke the echoes of the silent night.

"In Heaven, dear heart!" And the voice had a delicious earthly ring in
its whole-hearted merriment. "Please God, you'll both be at Portel with
me before dawn."

Then she was indeed forced to believe. She put out her hands and groped
for him, for it was dark inside the carriage; she groped, and felt
his massive shoulders leaning across the body of the coach, wh