ome little distraction in
the crowd and the horses. He had seen her in the paddock long before the
Colonel's sharp eyes detected him; and, following in the crush, managed
to touch her hand in the crowded gateway, and whisper: "To-morrow, the
National Gallery, at four o'clock--by the Bacchus and Ariadne. For God's
sake!" Her gloved hand pressed his hard; and she was gone. He stayed in
the paddock, too happy almost to breathe....

Next day, while waiting before that picture, he looked at it with
wonder. For there seemed his own passion transfigured in the darkening
star-crowned sky, and the eyes of the leaping god. In spirit, was he not
always rushing to her like that? Minutes passed, and she did not come.
What should he do if she failed him? Surely die of disappointment and
despair.... He had little enough experience as yet of the toughness of
the human heart; how life bruises and crushes, yet leaves it beating....
Then, from an unlikely quarter, he saw her coming.

They walked in silence down to the quiet rooms where the Turner
watercolours hung. No one, save two Frenchmen and an old official,
watched them passing slowly before those little pictures, till they came
to the end wall, and, unseen, unheard by any but her, he could begin!

The arguments he had so carefully rehearsed were all forgotten; nothing
left but an incoherent pleading. Life without her was not life; and they
had only one life for love--one summer. It was all dark where she was
not--the very sun itself was dark. Better to die than to live such
false, broken lives, apart from each other. Better to die at once than
to live wanting each other, longing and longing, and watching each
other's sorrow. And all for the sake of what? It maddened, killed him,
to think of that man touching her when he knew she did but hate him. It
shamed all manhood; it could not be good to help such things to be. A
vow when the spirit of it was gone was only superstition; it was wicked
to waste one's life for the sake of that. Society--she knew, she must
know--only cared for the forms, the outsides of things. And what did it
matter what Society thought? It had no soul, no feeling, nothing. And if
it were said they ought to sacrifice themselves for the sake of others,
to make things happier in the world, she must know that was only true
when love was light and selfish; but not when people loved as they did,
with all their hearts and souls, so that they would die for each other
a