"Dear," she cried, "dear," to the great dark man, and in her tones were the sounds you will hear in the voice of a mother. "But God is kind that I see you again before I am wife to your cousin. And you too," and her laughter came again, "your cousin will be wife to you. It is droll," and she had always a taking way of that word. "Listen, my friend, here is this good night with a great strong wind and the moon clear like the fire of the Bon Dieu, and the little stars merry and twinkling, and the great white road. Are not we the children of this night? Are not we the frien's of the night peoples?"
Bryde nodded, still looking.
"Then this is mine—all this night, this good night. Come."
On the dry bracken, a little way from the roadside, he spread his coat to make a resting-place for her.
"Now," she cried, "tell me."
"This is not right, Helen," and then—
"I care not for right," she cried, and her laughing came again, but he waved her words aside.
"It will be only days now and you will be the wife of Hugh."
"No—no—no," she clasped her arms round herself. "All this will be his, but my heart—my heart will be waiting, but this one night my heart is mine. See," she cried, "he beat—beat—beat for joy. Once I tell you I will forget my convent ways, and I will make you forget. See, my mother love one man and marry another, and I am born, and all in me cry for that hill man—it is the cry from my mother in me."
Her hand was holding his arm. "Hugh tells me you will go to America with Margaret. It is not true—tell me."