s in a fairy-tale, as alone as
though around the cave beat an ocean that boat had never crossed.

They sat near each other; once or twice Ian, rising, moved to and fro
in the cave, or at the opening looked into the turmoil without. When
he did this her eyes followed him. Each, in every fiber, had
consciousness of the other. They were as conscious of each other as
lion and lioness in a desert cave.

They talked, but they did not talk much. What they said was trite
enough. Underneath was the potent language, wave meeting wave with
shock and thrill and exultation. These would not come, here and now,
to outer utterance. But sooner or later they would come. Each knew
that--though not always does one acknowledge what is known.

When they spoke it was chiefly of weather and of country people....

The lightning blazed less frequently, thunder subdued itself. For a
time the rain fell thick and leaden, but after an hour it thinned and
grew silver. Presently it wholly stopped.

"This storm is over," said Ian.

Elspeth rose from the ledge of stone. He drew aside the dripping
curtain of leaf and stem, and she stepped forth from the cave, and he
followed. The clouds were breaking, the birds were singing. The day of
creation could not have seen the glen more lucent and fragrant. When,
soon, they came to its lower reaches, with White Farm before them,
they saw overhead a rainbow.

* * * * *

The day of the storm and the cave was over, but with no outward word
their inner selves had covenanted to meet again. They met in the leafy
glen. It was easy for her to find an errand to Mother Binning's, or,
even, in the long summer afternoons, to wander forth from White Farm
unquestioned. As for him, he came over the moor, avoided the cot at
the glen head, and plunged down the steep hillside below. Once they
met Jock Binning in the glen. After that they chose for their
trysting-place that green hidden arm that once she and the laird of
Glenfernie had entered.

Elspeth did not think in those days; she loved. She moved as one who
is moved; she was drawn as by the cords of the sun. The Ancient One,
the Sphinx, had her fast. The reflection of a greater thing claimed
her and taught her, held her like a bayadere in a temple court.

As for Ian, he also held that he loved. He was the Arab bound for the
well for which he thirsted, single-minded as to that, and without much
present consciousness of tarnish or sin.