ferent from anything I had ever known, but when you opened
your eyes I knew what it was, and my heart seemed to fly from my body.
And I longed, as I had never longed with the others, to give you your
soul's desire, and I have tried and tried, and I could not. I could not
give you anything at all, but every hour of the day and night I seemed
to be taking from you. And yet what you had to give me was never
exhausted. And the evil in me often fought against you, when I dreaded
your knowing the truth about me, and would have lied my soul away to
keep you from knowing it; and when I was jealous of your love for your
brothers. So again and again I failed, when I should have thought of
nothing but that you loved me as I loved you. For did I not know of my
own love that it could never give you cause to be jealous, nor would
ever shrink from any truth it might know of you?--but now--but
now!--oh, my heart, had I known, when you spoke last night of your
bride, that I was she! I will never be she! I was not good enough. I
fought myself in vain." And she drooped in his arms, nearly fainting.

"Love Margaret!" said Hobb, and the tears ran down his face, "I will
fight for you, yes, and you will fight for me. And if you have
sacrificed joy and courage and beauty and wisdom for my sake, I will
give them all to you again; and yet you must also give them to me, for
they are things in which without you I am wanting. But together we can
make them. And when I went to my garden this morning, I thanked God
that my rose was not perfect, and that you had not taken my heart, as
you had taken joy and courage and beauty and wisdom, as a penalty for a
gift. Their desires you could give them, and take their best in
payment, but mine you could not give me in the same way. For in love
there are no penalties and no payments, and what is given is
indistinguishable from what is received." And he bent his head and
kissed her long and deeply, and in that kiss neither knew themselves,
or even each other, but something beyond all consciousness that was
both of them.

Presently Hobb said, "Now let us go away from Open Winkins together,
and I will take you to the Burgh. But you must go as my bride."

And Margaret, pale as death from that long kiss, withdrew herself very
slowly from his arms. And her dark eyes looked strange in the moonlight
as he had never seen them, and more beautiful, with a beauty beyond
beauty; and deep joy too was in them, and an infini