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“Will you come for a walk,” he said eagerly. He held out his hand like a child; as a child she stood up and took it; like two children they went out and down the sunset shore. Roger was again incredibly happy. It was not the same happiness as had been his in that vanished fortnight; it was a homelier happiness with its feet on the earth. The amazing thing was that he felt she was happy too–happy because she was walking with him, “Jarback” Temple, whom no girl had even thought about. A certain secret well-spring of fancy that had seemed dry welled up in him sparklingly again.

Through the summer weeks the odd courtship went on. Roger talked to her as he had never talked to anyone. He did not find it in the least hard to talk to her, though her necessity of watching his face so closely while he talked bothered him occasionally. He felt that her intent gaze was reading his soul as well as his lips. She never talked much herself; what she did say she spoke so low that it was hardly above a whisper, but she had a voice as lovely as her face–sweet, cadenced, haunting. Roger was quite mad about her, and he was horribly afraid that he could never get up enough courage to ask her to marry him. And he was afraid that if he did, she would never consent. In spite of her shy, eager welcomes he could not believe she could care for him–for him. She liked him, she was sorry for him, but it was unthinkable that she, white, exquisite Lilith, could marry him and sit at his table and his hearth. He was a fool to dream of it.

To the existence of romance and glamour in which he lived, no gossip of the countryside penetrated. Yet much gossip there was, and at last it came blundering in on Roger to destroy his fairy world a second time. He came downstairs one night in the twilight, ready to go to Lilith. His aunt and an old crony were talking in the kitchen; the crony was old, and Catherine, supposing Roger was out of the house, was talking loudly in that horrible voice of hers with still more horrible zest and satisfaction.

“Yes, I’m guessing it’ll be a match as ye say. Oh the b’y’s doing well. He ain’t for every market, as I’m bound to admit. Ef she wan’t deaf she wouldn’t look at him, no doubt. But she has scads of money–they won’t need to do a tap of work unless they like–and she’s a good housekeeper too her aunt tells me. She’s pretty enough to suit him–he’s as particular as never was–and he wan’t crooked and she wan’t deaf when they was born, so it’s likely their children will be all right. I’m that proud when I think of the match.”

Roger fled out of the house, white of face and sick of heart. He went, not to the bay shore, but to Isabel Temple’s grave. He had never been there since the night when he had rescued Lilith, but now he rushed to it in his new agony. His aunt’s horrible practicalities had filled him with disgust–they dragged his love in the dust of sordid things. And Lilith was rich; he had never known that–never suspected it. He could never ask her to marry him now; he must never see her again. For the second time he had lost her, and this second losing could not be borne.

He sat down on the big boulder by the grave and dropped his poor grey face in his hands, moaning in anguish. Nothing was left him, not even dreams. He hoped he could soon die.

He did not know how long he sat there–he did not know when she came. But when he lifted his miserable eyes, he saw her, sitting just a little way from him on the big stone and looking at him with something in her face that made his heart beat madly. He forgot Aunt Catherine’s sacrilege–he forgot that he was a presumptuous fool. He bent forward and kissed her lips for the first time. The wonder of it loosed his bound tongue.

“Lilith,” he gasped, “I love you.”

She put her hand into his and nestled closer to him.

“I thought you would have told me that long ago,” she said.