“Go to sleep,” he said. “There is nothing to be afraid of.”
After that the man slept more soundly. Macheson himself dozed for an hour until he was awakened by the calling of the birds. Directly he opened his eyes he knew that something had happened to him. It was not only the music of the birds—there was a strange new music stirring in his heart. The pearly light in the eastern sky had never seemed so beautiful; never, surely, had the sunlight streamed down upon so perfect a corner of the earth. And then, with a quick rush of blood to his cheeks, he remembered what it was that had so changed the world. He lived again through that bewildering moment, again he felt the delicious warmth of her presence, the touch of her hair as it had brushed his cheek, the soft passionate pressure of her lips against his. It was like an episode from a fairy story, there was something so delicate, so altogether fanciful in that flying visit. Something, too, so unbelievable when he thought of her as the mistress of Thorpe, the languid, insolent woman of the world who had treated him so coldly.
Then a movement behind reminded him of his strange visitor. He turned round. The man was already on his feet. He looked better for his sleep, but the wild look was still in his eyes.
“I must go,” he said. “I ought to have started before. Thank you for your shelter.”
Macheson reached out for his spirit lamp.
“Wait a few minutes,” he said, “and I will have some coffee ready.”
The man hesitated. He looked sorely in need of something of the sort. As he came to the opening of the shelter, the trembling seized him again. He looked furtively out as though he feared the daylight. The sunshine and the bright open day seemed to terrify him.
“I ought to have gone on last night,” he muttered. “I must——”
He broke off his sentence. Macheson, too, had turned his head to listen.