mile has faded; she struggles
slightly, and then all in one moment Desmond becomes aware that tears
have sprung into her eyes.

Instantly he releases her.

"Darling, forgive me," he says, anxiously. "See how your heart is
beating now, and all for nothing! Of course I shall let you off your
bargain. What do you take me for? Do you think I should make you unhappy
for all the world could offer? Take those tears out of your eyes this
instant, or I shall be seriously angry with you."

Monica laughs, but in a rather nervous fashion, and lets her lover dry
her eyes with his own handkerchief. Then she sits down with him upon a
rustic seat close by, wishing to be quite mistress of herself again
before encountering the glare of the drawing-room lamps and the still
more searching light of her friends' eyes.

For a full minute not a word is spoken by either of them She is inwardly
troubled; he is downcast. Presently she rises with a little restless
movement.

"No, do not stir just yet," she says. "I only want to pick some of that
syringa behind you, it is so sweet."

Disinclined for action of any sort, he obeys her. She slips away behind
him, and he sits there waiting listlessly for her return, and thinking,
somewhat sadly, how small a way he has made with her, and that she is
almost as shy with him now as on that day by the river when first they
met.

And then something marvellous happens that puts all his theories and
regrets and fears to flight forever. Two soft arms--surely the softest
in this wide glad world--steal round his neck; a gold-brown head is laid
against his; a whisper reaches him.

"You were very good to me about _that_!" says somebody, tremulously; and
then two warm childish lips are laid on his, and Monica is in his arms.

"I wonder what it was that frightened you?" says Desmond, in a tender
whisper, drawing her down on his knees and enfolding her closely as
though she were in form the child that verily at heart she still is.
"Tell me."

"I don't know." She has twined her bare beautiful arms around him, and
is rubbing her cheek softly up and down against his in a fresh access of
shyness.

"I think you do, my dearest."

"It was only this; that when I found I couldn't get away from you, I was
frightened. It was very foolish of me, but whenever I read those stories
about prisoners of war, and people being confined in dungeons, and that,
I always know that if I were made a captive I should _die_."

"