'clock!" he said.

The pair stood, loth to part, hugging their books.

"The wood is so lovely now," she said. "I wanted you to see it."

He followed her slowly across the road to the white gate.

"They grumble so if I'm late," he said.

"But you're not doing anything wrong," she answered impatiently.

He followed her across the nibbled pasture in the dusk. There was a
coolness in the wood, a scent of leaves, of honeysuckle, and a twilight.
The two walked in silence. Night came wonderfully there, among the
throng of dark tree-trunks. He looked round, expectant.

She wanted to show him a certain wild-rose bush she had discovered. She
knew it was wonderful. And yet, till he had seen it, she felt it had
not come into her soul. Only he could make it her own, immortal. She was
dissatisfied.

Dew was already on the paths. In the old oak-wood a mist was rising, and
he hesitated, wondering whether one whiteness were a strand of fog or
only campion-flowers pallid in a cloud.

By the time they came to the pine-trees Miriam was getting very eager
and very tense. Her bush might be gone. She might not be able to find
it; and she wanted it so much. Almost passionately she wanted to be
with him when he stood before the flowers. They were going to have a
communion together--something that thrilled her, something holy. He was
walking beside her in silence. They were very near to each other. She
trembled, and he listened, vaguely anxious.

Coming to the edge of the wood, they saw the sky in front, like
mother-of-pearl, and the earth growing dark. Somewhere on the outermost
branches of the pine-wood the honeysuckle was streaming scent.

"Where?" he asked.

"Down the middle path," she murmured, quivering.

When they turned the corner of the path she stood still. In the wide
walk between the pines, gazing rather frightened, she could distinguish
nothing for some moments; the greying light robbed things of their
colour. Then she saw her bush.

"Ah!" she cried, hastening forward.

It was very still. The tree was tall and straggling. It had thrown its
briers over a hawthorn-bush, and its long streamers trailed thick, right
down to the grass, splashing the darkness everywhere with great spilt
stars, pure white. In bosses of ivory and in large splashed stars the
roses gleamed on the darkness of foliage and stems and grass. Paul and
Miriam stood close together, silent, and watched. Point after point the
steady roses shone out to