.. John!"

And knowing suddenly, though not how or why, that all barriers were
swept away, his arms went out and around her, and in the shadow of
the lonely little station, they two, in their saddles, clung and
swayed together with clasping hands and broken words, while the train,
breathing heavily for a resentful second, shrieked itself away into the
night, and left only the fragrance from the misty fields, the crowding
silence and the sprinkling stars.

* * * * *

The breeze had risen and was blowing the mist away as they went back
along the road. A faint light was lifting, forerunner of the moon. They
rode side by side, and to the slow gait of the horses, touching noses in
low whinnyings of equine comradeship, by the faint glamour they gazed
into each other's faces. The adorable tweedy roughness of his shoulder
thrilled her cheek.

"... And you were going away. Yes, yes, I know. It was my fault. I ...
misunderstood. Forgive me!"

He kissed her hand. "As if there were anything to forgive! Do you
remember in the woods, sweetheart, the day it rained? What a brute I
was--to fight so! And all the time I wanted to take you in my arms
like a little hurt child...."

She turned toward him. "Oh, I _wanted_ you to fight! Even though it was
no use. I had given up, but your strength comforted me. To have you
surrender, too--"

"It was your face in the churchyard," he told her. "How pale and worn
you looked! It came to me then for the first time how horribly selfish
it would be to stay--how much easier going would make it for you."

"... And to think that it was Mad Anthony--Did the clock _really_ strike
thirteen, do you think? Or did I fancy it?"

"Why question it?" he said. "I believe in mysteries. The greatest
mystery of all is that you should love me. I doubt no miracle hereafter.
Dearest, dearest!"

* * * * *

At the entrance of the cherry lane, he fastened his horse to the hedge,
and noiselessly let down the pasture-bars for her golden chestnut. When
he came back to where she stood waiting on the edge of the lawn, the
late moon, golden-vestured, was just showing above the rim of the
hills, painting the deep soft blueness of the Virginian night with a
translucence as pure as prayer. Above the fallen hood of her cloak her
hair shone like a nimbus, and the loveliness of her face made him catch
his breath for the wonderfulness of it.

As they stood hea