There was such a lot to do at the last minute," Harney was explaining,
"and I had to drive down to Creston to meet someone who has come to stay
with my cousin for the show."

He had his arms about her, and his kisses were in her hair and on her
lips. Under his touch things deep down in her struggled to the light and
sprang up like flowers in sunshine. She twisted her fingers into his,
and they sat down side by side on the improvised couch. She hardly heard
his excuses for being late: in his absence a thousand doubts tormented
her, but as soon as he appeared she ceased to wonder where he had come
from, what had delayed him, who had kept him from her. It seemed as if
the places he had been in, and the people he had been with, must cease
to exist when he left them, just as her own life was suspended in his
absence.

He continued, now, to talk to her volubly and gaily, deploring his
lateness, grumbling at the demands on his time, and good-humouredly
mimicking Miss Hatchard's benevolent agitation. "She hurried off Miles
to ask Mr. Royall to speak at the Town Hall tomorrow: I didn't know till
it was done." Charity was silent, and he added: "After all, perhaps it's
just as well. No one else could have done it."

Charity made no answer: She did not care what part her guardian played
in the morrow's ceremonies. Like all the other figures peopling her
meagre world he had grown non-existent to her. She had even put off
hating him.

"Tomorrow I shall only see you from far off," Harney continued. "But in
the evening there'll be the dance in the Town Hall. Do you want me to
promise not to dance with any other girl?"

Any other girl? Were there any others? She had forgotten even that
peril, so enclosed did he and she seem in their secret world. Her heart
gave a frightened jerk.

"Yes, promise."

He laughed and took her in his arms. "You goose--not even if they're
hideous?"

He pushed the hair from her forehead, bending her face back, as his way
was, and leaning over so that his head loomed black between her eyes and
the paleness of the sky, in which the white star floated...

Side by side they sped back along the dark wood-road to the village. A
late moon was rising, full orbed and fiery, turning the mountain ranges
from fluid gray to a massive blackness, and making the upper sky so
light that the stars looked as faint as their own reflections in water.
At the edge of the wood, half a mile from North Dormer, Harney jumped