“Why, curiously enough,” said Myra, “before coming out I locked my bedroom door. I have the key here. I had left some papers lying about—I am not a very tidy person. On the only other occasion upon which I locked my door, I omitted dinner altogether, and went to bed on returning from my evening walk. I am supposed to be doing a ‘rest-cure’ here. The maid tried my door, went away, and did not turn up again until next morning. Most likely she has done the same to-night.”
“Then I don’t suppose they will send out a search-party,” said Jim Airth.
“No. We are so alone down here. We only matter to ourselves,” said Myra.
“And to each other,” said Jim Airth, quietly.
Myra’s heart stood still.
Those four words, spoken so simply by that deep tender voice, meant more to her than any words had ever meant. They meant so much, that they made for themselves a silence—a vast holy temple of wonder and realisation wherein they echoed back and forth, repeating themselves again and again.
The two on the ledge sat listening.
The chant of mutual possession, so suddenly set going, was too beautiful a thing to be interrupted by other words.
Even Lady Ingleby’s unfailing habit of tactful speech was not allowed to spoil the deep sweetness of this unexpected situation. Myra’s heart was waking; and when the heart is stirred, the mind sometimes forgets to be tactful.
At length:—“Don’t you remember,” he said, very low, “what I told you before we began to climb? Did I not say, that if we succeeded in reaching the ledge safely, we should owe our lives to each other? Well, we did; and—we do.”