Hastily changing his clothes, he walked up the street. Lights and music poured out of the open windows of the large house; the full moon made the grounds about it almost as bright as the rooms. He stepped up on the piazza and looked in at the swaying couples. Lady Jane, beautiful in pale blue mull, drifted by in her young host's arms. She was flushed with dancing; her hair had escaped from its usual calm. He hardly recognized her. As he looked out toward the old garden, he caught a glimpse of a flowing white gown, a lace scarf thrown over a head whose fine poise he could not mistake.
A young man passed him with a filmy crêpe shawl he knew well. The colonel stepped along with him.
“You are taking this to Mrs. Leroy?”
“Yes, colonel, she feels the air a little.”
“Let me relieve you of it,” and he walked alone into the garden with the softly scented cobweb over his arm.
She was standing in an old neglected summer-house, her back to the door. As he stopped behind her and laid the soft wrap over her firm white shoulders, she turned her head with a startled prescience of his personality, and met his eyes full. He looked straight into those soft gray depths, and as he looked, searching for something there, he knew not what, troubled strangely by her nearness and the helpless surrender of her fastened gaze, a great light burst upon him.
“It is you! it is you!” he said hoarsely, and crushing her in his arms, he kissed her heavily on her yielding mouth.
For a moment she rested against him. The music, piercingly sweet, drove away thought. Then she drew herself back, pushing him blindly from her.
“No, no, no!” she gasped, “it is Lady! You are mad—”
“Mad?” he said quickly. “I was never sane till now. When I think of what I had to offer that dear child, when I realize to what a farce of love I was sacrificing her—oh, Alice dearest, you are a woman; you must have known!”