"It would be interesting to know what the papers are about," John Derringham went on. "We must look at them together some day when you are my wife."
"Yes," said Halcyone, and thrilled at the thought.
"So it was through the solid masonry you disappeared last night? No wonder, sprite, that I believed I was dreaming! Why did you fly from me? Why?"
"It was too great, too glorious to take all at once," she said, and with a sudden shyness she buried her face in his coat.
"My darling sweet one," he murmured, drawing her to him, passion flaming once more. "I could have cried madly"—and he quoted in Greek:
"Wilt them fly me and deny me?
By thine own joy I vow,
By the grape upon the bough,
Thou shalt seek me in the midnight, thou shalt love me even now."
Mr. Carlyon had not restricted Halcyone's reading: she knew it was from the "Bacchæ" of Euripides, and answered:
"Ah, yes, and, you see, I have sought you in the midnight, and I am here, and I love you—even now!"
After that, for a while they both seemed to fall into a dream of bliss. They spoke not, they just sat close together, his arms encircling her, her head upon his breast; and thus they watched the first precursors of dawn streak the sky and, looking up, found the stars had faded.
Halcyone started to her feet.