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But on that night of magic moonlight the only sound was the murmurous splash of the rising waves as they met the first grim rocks of the Point. Presently they would dash in thunder round the granite blade, and the sleeping pool would be turned to a smother of foam.

On the edge of the pool a woman’s figure clad in white stood balanced with outstretched arms. So still was the water, so splendid the moonlight, that the whole of her light form was mirrored there–a perfect image of nymph-like grace. She sang a soft, low, trilling song like the song of a blackbird awaking to the dawn.

“By Jupiter!” Knight murmured to himself. “If I could get her only once–only once–as–she–is!”

The gleam of the hunter was in his look. He stood on the rocks some yards away from her, gazing with eyes half-shut.

Suddenly she turned herself, and across the intervening space her voice came to him, half-mocking, half-alluring, “Have you found your inspiration yet?”

“Not yet,” he said.

She raised her shoulders with a humorous gesture, “Hasn’t the magic begun to work?”

He came towards her, moving slowly and with caution. “Don’t move!” he said.

She waited for him on the edge of the pool. There was laughter in her eyes, laughter and the sublime daring of innocence.

He reached her. They stood together on the same flat rock. He bent to her, in his eyes the burning worship of beauty.

“Columbine!” he said. “Witch! Enchantress! Queen!”

The red blood raced into her face. Her eyes shone into his with a sudden glory–the glory of the awaking soul. But the woman-instinct in her checked the first quick impulse of surrender.

She made a little motion away from him. She laughed and veiled her eyes from the fiery adoration that flamed upon her. “The magic is working–evidently,” she said. “What a good thing I brought you here!”

“Yes; it is a good thing,” he said, and in his voice she heard the deep note of a mastery that would not be denied. “Do you know what you have done to me, you goddess? You have opened the eyes of my heart. I am dazzled. I am blinded. I believe I am possessed. When I paint my picture –it will be such as the world has never seen.”

“Hadn’t you better begin it?” whispered Columbine.

He held out his hand to her–a hand that was not wholly steady. “Not yet,” he said. “The vision is too near, too wonderful. How shall I paint the rapture that I have hardly yet dared to contemplate? Columbine!”

His voice suddenly pleaded, and as though in answer she laid her hand in his. But she did not raise her eyes. She palpitated from head to foot like a captured bird.

“You are not–afraid?” he whispered.

“I don’t know,” she whispered back. “Not of you–not of you!”

“Ah!” he said. “We are caught in the same net. There is nothing terrible in that. The same magic is working in us both. Let it work, dear! We understand each other. Why should there be anything to fear?”

But still she did not raise her eyes, and still she trembled in his hold. “I never thought,” she faltered, “never dreamed. Oh, is it true?”

“True that you are the most beautiful creature that this earth contains?” he said, and his voice throbbed upon the words. “True that the very sight of you turns my blood to fire? Aphrodite, goddess and sorceress, do you doubt that? Wait till you see my picture, and then ask! I have found my inspiration tonight–yes, I have found it–but it is so immense–so overwhelming–that I cannot grasp it yet. Tonight, dear, just for tonight–let me worship at your feet! This madness must have its way. In the morning I shall be sane again. Tonight–tonight I tread Olympus with the Immortals.”

He was drawing her towards him, and Columbine–Columbine, who suffered no man’s hand upon her–was yielding slowly, but inevitably, to the persuasion of his touch. Just at the last, indeed, she made a small, wholly futile attempt to free herself; but the moment she did so his hold became the hold of the conqueror, and with a faint laugh she flung aside the instinct that had prompted it. The next instant, freely and splendidly, she raised her downcast face and abandoned herself utterly to him.