w. It was one of her
own night-gowns.

I glanced uneasily towards the bed. Its daintiness frightened me,
used as I was to the housekeeping--coarse if clean--of Mrs. Trapp.

"Your prayers first," she whispered. "Don't you know any?" She eyed
me anxiously again. "But you are a good boy? Surely you are a good
boy? Don't boys say their prayers? They ought to."

Since passing out of Miss Plinlimmon's tutelage, I had sadly
neglected the habit: but I knelt down obediently and in silence.

She stepped close behind me. "But you're not speaking," she
murmured. "Father always says his aloud, and so do I. You mustn't
pretend, if you don't really know any. I can teach you."

She knelt down beside me, and began to say the Lord's Prayer softly.
I repeated it after her, sentence by sentence: and this was really
shamming, for of course I knew it perfectly. At the time I felt only
that she--this beautiful creature beside me--was in a strange state
of exaltation which I could not in the least understand. I know now
something of the springs I had touched and loosened within her--I, a
naked waif coming to her out of the night and catching her hand for
protection. It was not I she taught, nor over me that she yearned.
She was reaching through me to a child unknown, using me to press
against a strange love tearing at the roots of her body, and to break
the pain of it--the roots of her body, I say; for he who can separate
a woman's soul from her body is a wiser man than I.

She rose from her knees; threw back the sheets and tucked them about
me as I snuggled down.

"What is your name?"

"Harry Revel. Are you Miss Isabel Brooks?"

"I am Isabel."

"Why were you crying, out in the road?"

"Was I crying?"

"Well, not crying exactly: but you looked as if you wanted to."

She smiled. "We both have our secrets it seems; and you shall tell
me yours to-morrow. Will yours let you sleep?"

"I think so, Miss Isabel. I am so tired--and so clean--and this bed
is so soft--" I stretched out my arms luxuriously, and almost before
I knew it she was bending to kiss me, and they were about her neck.
Her hair fell over me in a shower and in the shade of it she laughed
happily, kissing me by the ear and whispering, "I have my happy
secret, too!"

She straightened herself up, tossed back the dark locks with curved
sweep of arm and wrist, and moved to the door.

"Good night, Harry Revel!"

A bird was cheeping in the jasmi