Not to-night, at least," said MacLeod, with unblemished kindliness.
"Don't do anything intemperate. But you won't. I know you too well."

After a good-night she could not answer he went in and up the stairs.
She could hear him humming to himself that gay little song. She stood
there quite still, as if she were in hiding from him and he might return
to find her. When the door closed above, she still stood there, her
nails clasped into her palms. And for the instant she was not thinking
of herself, but of Electra. It seemed to her that it would be necessary
to protect Electra from his charm. Then she heard Peter whistling back
again. She stepped down to the end of the veranda and stole across the
orchard into the field. The night was still, yet invisible forces seemed
to be whispering to one another. In the middle of the field she stopped,
tempted to call to Osmond, knowing he was there. But because it was
late, and because her thoughts were all a disordered and protesting
turmoil, she turned about and fled home.

XVIII

The next night Rose went early to her own room, and when she heard Peter
and MacLeod on the veranda, their voices continuing in a steady
interchange, she took her cloak, locked the chamber door behind her, and
ran downstairs and out by the long window to the garden, the orchard,
and the field. The night was dark and hot, and over in the south played
fitful lightnings. In spite of the heat, she wrapped her cloak about her
for an invisible shield: for now that MacLeod had come, she felt
strangely insecure, as if eyes were everywhere. It was apparent to her
that these meetings might be few, and as if this even might be the last;
so it must not be interrupted. When she was once in the field, the hush
of the night, the heat, and her own uneasy thoughts bewildered her. She
stopped in doubt. His voice assured her.

"This way, playmate."

"I am coming," she found herself answering, not once but twice, and
then, as she reached the seat he had ready for her, it came upon her
overwhelmingly that such gladness was of the scope and tumult to bear
two creatures to each other's arms, to mingle there, face to face and
breast to breast.

But the quick thought neither threw her back in shame upon herself nor
forward to his side. The night and the things of life together were too
great to admit of fine timidities or crude betrayals. It was not of so
much avail to consider what was done as whether the deed was