e corner of the table
and pressed Nicolete's hand as it rested on the cloth. She did not
withdraw it, and our eyes met with a steady gaze of love.

"Nicolete," I said presently, when I could speak, "it is time for you
to be going back home."

"Why?" she asked breathlessly.

"Because," I answered, "I must love you if you stay."

"Would you then bid me go?" she said.

"Nicolete," I said, "don't tempt me. Be a good girl and go home."

"But supposing I don't want to go home," she said; "supposing--oh,
supposing I love you too? Would you still bid me go?"

"Yes," I said. "In that case it would be even more imperative."

"Aucassin!"

"It is true, it is true, dear Nicolete."

"Then, Aucassin," she replied, almost sternly, in her great girlish
love, "this is true also,--I love you. I have never loved, shall never
love, any man but you!"

"Nicolete!"

"Aucassin!"

There were no more words spoken between us for a full hour that
afternoon.

CHAPTER IX

WRITTEN BY MOONLIGHT

I knew deep down in my heart that it couldn't last, yet how deny myself
these roses, while the opportunity of gathering them was mine!--the
more so, as I believed it would do no harm to Nicolete. At all events,
a day or two more or less of moonshine would make no matter either way.
And so all next day we walked hand in hand through Paradise.

It has been said by them of old time, and our fathers have told us,
that the kiss of first love, the first kiss of the first woman we love,
is beyond all kisses sweet; and true it is. But true is it also that
no less sweet is the first kiss of the last woman we love.

Putting my faith in old saws, as a young man will, I had never dreamed
to know again a bliss so divinely passionate and pure as came to me
with every glance of Nicolete's sweet eyes, with every simple pressure
of her hand; and the joy that was mine when sometimes, stopping on our
way, we would press together our lips ever so gravely and tenderly,
seems too holy even to speak of.

The holy angels could not have loved Nicolete with a purer love, a love
freer from taint of any earthly thought, than I, a man of thirty,
blase, and fed from my youth upon the honeycomb of woman.

It was curious that the first difficulty of our pilgrimage should
befall us the very next day. Coming towards nightfall to a small inn
in a lonely unpopulated countryside, we found that the only
accommodation the inn afforded was one double-bedded room