"It's all right now, then, and I can go," says Kit, joyfully.
"Go? To bed, you mean, darling?"
"Yes, now I know you are happy," says Kit, tenderly; and then the sisters embrace, and presently Monica is alone, but for the shadow in the moonlight.
"It is you, Monica?" says Brian, coming close beneath her window, and looking upwards.
She leans out to him, her white gown gleaming softly in the moon's rays.
"Oh, why venture out at this hour?" she says, nervously. Now he is here,—woman-like,—fears for his safety, forgotten before, arise in all their horror. "They may have followed you; they may——"
"Come down to the balcony," he interrupts her, with a light laugh. "I want to talk to you. Nonsense, dear heart! I am as safe as a church. Who would touch me, with an angel like you near to protect me?"
His shadow, as he moves away, may again be seen for an instant, before he turns the corner of the old house; and Monica, opening her door softly, runs lightly down the corridor and the staircase, and across the hall and the drawing-room floor until she reaches the balcony beyond, where she finds his arms awaiting her.
"You have missed me all day?" he says, after a pause that to them has been divine.
"Oh, Brian, what a day it has been!" she clings to him. "All these past hours have been full of horror. Whenever I thought of your danger last night, I seemed to grow cold and dead with fear; and then when the minutes slipped by, and still you never came to me, I began to picture you as cold and dead, and then——Ah!" she clings still closer to him, and her voice fails her. "I never knew," she whispers, brokenly, "how well I loved you until I so nearly lost you. I could not live without you now."