n Mother."

"When are you and Miss Starr going to be married?" asked Edith, idly.

Alden started. "How did you know?" he demanded, roughly, possessing
himself of her hands. "Who told you--Mother, or--Miss Starr?"

[Sidenote: Mutual Understanding]

"Neither," replied Edith, coldly, releasing herself. "I--just knew. I
beg your pardon," she added, hastily. "Of course it's none of my
affair."

"But it is," he said, under his breath. Then, coming closer, he took her
hands again. "Look here, Edith, there's something between you and me--do
you know it?"

"How do you mean?" She tried to speak lightly, but her face was pale.

"You know very well what I mean. How do you know what I think, what I
do, what I am? And the nights--no, don't try to get away from me--from
that first night when I woke at four and knew you were crying, to that
other night when you knew it was I who was awake with you, and all the
nights since when the tide of time has turned between three and four!
I've known your thoughts, your hopes, your dreams, as you've known mine!

"And the next day," he went on, "when you avoid me even with your eyes;
when you try to hide with laughter and light words your consciousness of
the fact that the night before you and I have met somewhere, in some
mysterious way, and known each other as though we were face to face! Can
you be miserable, and I not know it? Can I be tormented by a thousand
doubts, and you not know it? Could you be ill, or troubled, or even
perplexed, and I not know, though the whole world lay between us? Answer
me!"

[Sidenote: Oblivious of Time and Space]

Edith's face was very white and her lips almost refused to move. "Oh,
Boy," she whispered, brokenly. "What does it mean?"

"This," he answered, imperiously. "It means this--and now!"

He took her into his arms, crushing her to him so tightly that she
almost cried out with the delicious pain of it. In the rose-scented
shadow, his mouth found hers.

Time and space were no more. At the portal of the lips, soul met soul.
The shaded veranda, and even the house itself faded away. Only this
new-born ecstasy lived, like a flaming star suddenly come to earth.

Madame stirred in her sleep. Then she called, drowsily: "Alden! Edith!"
No one answered, because no one heard. She got up, smothering a yawn
behind her hand, wondered that there were no lights, waited a moment,
heard nothing, and came to the window.

The moon flooded the earth with enchant