and real as death it towered
there against the pale evening, until its shadow, falling on my heart
itself and on the soft brown head that bent and nestled there, lay
round us clasped so, and with its frown cursed the morning of our
love.

Something in my heart's beat, or in the stiffening of my arm, must
have startled my darling, for as I gazed I felt her stir, and,
looking down, caught her eyes turned wistfully upwards. My lips bent
to hers.

"Mine, Claire! Mine for ever!"

And there, beneath the shadow of the Rock, our lips drew closer, met,
and were locked in their first kiss.

When I looked up again the shadow had vanished, and the west was grey
and clear.

So in the tranquil evening we rowed homewards, our hearts too full
for speech. The wan moon rose and trod the waters, but we had no
thoughts, no eyes for her. Our eyes were looking into each other's
depths, our thoughts no thoughts at all, but rather a dazzled and
wondering awe.

Only as a light or two gleamed out, and Streatley twinkled in the
distance, Claire said--

"Can it be true? You know nothing of me."

"I know you love me. What more should I know, or wish to know?"

The red lips were pursed in a manner that spoke whole tomes of
wisdom.

"You do not know that I work for my living all the week?"

"When you are mine you shall work no more."

"'But sit on a cushion and sew a gold seam'? Ah, no; I have to work.
It is strange," she said, musingly, "so strange."

"What is strange, Claire?"

"That you have never seen me except on my holidays--that we have
never met. What have you done since you have been in London?"

I thought of my walks and tireless quest in Oxford Street with a kind
of shame. That old life was severed from the present by whole
worlds.

"I have lived very quietly," I answered. "But is it so strange that
we have never met?"

She laughed a low and musical laugh, and as the boat drew shoreward
and grounded, replied--

"Perhaps not. Come, let us go to mother--Jasper."

O sweet sound from sweetest lips! We stepped ashore, and
hand-in-hand entered the room where her mother sat.

As she looked up and saw us standing there together, she knew the
truth in a moment. Her blue eyes filled with sudden fear, her worn
hand went upwards to her heart. Until that instant she had not known
of my presence there that day, and in a flash divined its meaning.

"I feared it," she answered at length, as I told my story and