Across the whole expanse of the water a bright path is flung, that has its birth in heaven, yet deigns to accept a resting-place on earth,—a transitory rest, for there in the far distance on the horizon, where the dull grays of sea and sky have mingled, it has joined them, and seems again to have laid hold of its earliest home.
The birds are asleep in their sea-bound nests; the wind has died away. There is nothing to break the exquisite stillness of the night, save the monotonous beating of the waves against the rocks, and the faint rippling murmur of a streamlet in the ash-grove.
The whole scene is so rich with a beauty mystical and idealistic that Monica draws instinctively nearer to Desmond, with that desire for sympathy common to the satisfied soul, and stirs her hand in his.
Here, perhaps, it will be as well to mention, once for all, that whenever I give you to understand that Desmond is alone with Monica you are also to understand, without the telling, that he has her hand in his. What pleasure there can be for two people in standing, or sitting, or driving, as the case may be, for hours, palm to palm (this is how the poetical one expresses it), I leave all true lovers to declare. I only know for certain that it is a trick common to every one of them, rich and poor, high and low. I suppose there is consolation in the touch,—a sensation of nearness. I know, indeed, one young woman who assured me her principal reason for marrying Fred in a hurry (Fred was her husband) lay in the fact that she feared if she didn't she would grow left-handed, as he was always in possession of the right during their engagement.
"Ah! you like it," says Desmond, looking down upon her tenderly,—alluding to the charming view spread out before them,—the dark firs, the floating moon, the tranquil stars, the illimitable ocean, "of Almightiness itself the immense and glorious mirror."
Monica makes no verbal answer, but a sigh of intensest satisfaction escapes her, and she turns up to his a lovely face full of youth and heaven and content. Her eyes are shining, her lips parted by a glad, tremulous smile. She is altogether so unconsciously sweet that it would be beyond the power of even a Sir Percivale to resist her.
"My heart of hearts!" says Desmond, in a low, impassioned tone.
Her smile changes. Without losing beauty, it loses something ethereal and gains a touch of earth. It is more pronounced; it is, in fact, amused.
"I wonder where you learned all your terms of endearment," she says, slowly, looking at him from under her curling lashes.
"I learned them when I saw you. They had their birth then and there."