She felt more alive and vital than ever in her life before. The clamour of the storm seemed to be in her veins as well as in her ears. She was glad with a wild, exultant happiness of which she had never dreamed, when she found herself snatched by strong arms and held close, close. The maelstrom whirled about her, but she was clasped safe in a sheltered place. Sarle kissed her with long, silent kisses. There was no need for words, their lips told the tale to each other. It seemed to her that her nature expanded into the vastness of the sea and the wind and the stars, and became part with them. . . . But all the while she was conscious of being just a slight, trembling girl held close against a man's heart—the right man, and the right heart! She had come across the sea to find him, and Africa had given them to each other. She lost count of time and place and terror. The burden of her trouble mercifully left her. She remembered only that she and Vereker Sarle loved each other and were here alone together in this wind-wracked wilderness of perfumed darkness and mystery. Her ears and mind were closed to everything but his whispering words:
"My darling, my darling . . . I have waited for you all my life . . . women have been nothing to me because I knew you were somewhere in the world. I have crossed the veld and the seas a thousand times looking for you, and have found you at last! I will never let you go."
He kissed her throat and her eyes. More than ever her whiteness shone in the gloom with the luminousness of a pearl.
"Your beauty makes me tremble," he whispered in her hair. "Darling, say that you love me and will give yourself to me for ever."
"I love you, Vereker. . . ."
"Call me Kerry."
"I love you, Kerry. I give myself to you."
She rejoiced in her beauty, because it was a precious gift to him.
"You don't know what you mean to me, Diana—a star dropped out of heaven; the pure air of the veld I love; white lilies growing on a mountain top. Thank God you are all these things without any darkness in you anywhere. It is the crown of a man's life to love a woman like you."
"Let me go, Kerry," she said. "It is late. I must go."