Below, unconscious of the tragedy so close to him, Jim, whose step it was Lady Kerhill had heard on the gravel-path, fought through the long night for his right to happiness. His entire horizon seemed blocked by the unyielding figures of Lady Elizabeth and Henry; behind them, tantalizing him with the sweetness of the vision, he could see Diana's face illumined with its new light of wonder. The heavy dews, which gave to the old garden its fragrant, green, sweet odors, drenched him as he paced along the path under the giant trees. He was insensible to his wet clothes—to the tumbled hair which the dampness knotted about his head in kinky curls. The tangle of his thoughts proved too difficult for him to unravel; the night had been so charged with emotions that he could hardly look truthfully into his own heart. The hours passed as he paced restlessly, dazed and overwhelmed by the chaotic uprooting of all his being. Aimlessly he at last wandered towards the Fairies' Corner, and sought rest on the rudely fashioned seat, dented and marked with his boyish carvings. There he lay haunted by intangible dreams until, overcome by weariness, he crept close into his old corner and slept.
The strong orange shafts of sunrise were lighting up the hill-side opposite Diana's window as she stealthily crept down and let herself out of the silent house into the garden. The mounds close to the Towers were covered with great splashes of heather, while the moor beyond dipped and stretched far away like a trailing, purple, overblown, monster flower, which seemed, mushroom-like, to have sprung up during the night. Diana's first sight of the brilliant coloring that came every July to the heather-covered hill-side, brought now as always bitter memories of her first summer in Scotland, where as a young bride the illusions of her virgin mind and heart had been shattered by Henry.
She turned away from its flaunting beauty with a shudder. No memories of the past had been hers during the night; why should she allow the old pain and heartache to come back? She alone in the great house had given herself up to delicious reveries that tempted her; every thought of Henry, her father, and the ties that bound her, she ignored. She never questioned what had changed her since she had left Henry, outraged at his vile suspicions. Why probe into the cause of her happiness? Enough that she could rejoice, silently, if need be, without a reason acknowledged even to herself, for her joy. But the dawn brought with it only feverish longing to reach the cool of the hill-side, and now the blooming riot of purple tones had struck at her like a menacing ghost. She plunged into a thicket, and, sinking knee-deep in its luxuriant growth, made her way across a yellow meadow. Finally she reached the copse of trees through which she could see the Elizabethan gables of the back of the house.
Oh, the beauty of the unstained day! Like every weary wayfarer exploring for the first time since childhood the fresh virgin country-side, her soul cried aloud its appreciation of this beauty of soft green, wet glistening flowers, crystal clear air, and what is utterly unknown save to the frequenters of the first hours of dawn in forests and glades, the ecstatic perfume of the early breezes. Across the hedges from their kingdom, the flower-garden, came these ripples of scented air, heavy with the breath of honeysuckle, rose, phlox, and heliotrope.
Like Jim, she unconsciously turned to the Fairies' Corner. As she reached the narrow aperture, and its wet earthy smell drowned the sweet, sensuous odors of the garden blossoms, she espied the sleeping figure on the old bench. At the unexpected discovery she gave an involuntary exclamation. Jim was lying on his back, with his head on his arm, all the wet stain of the night passed in the garden showing on his unchanged evening clothes, while the unkempt hair gave a curious boyishness to his face.
Diana waited for him to move, but her surprised ejaculation had failed to awaken him. How big and wonderful he was! The thick lashes swept his brown face with its dull touch of red showing under the olive skin. As she bent over him and was about to touch his hand to arouse him he opened his eyes.
He had been dreaming that he was in the hospital in the Hills after the fight, and in his delirium he was back at the Fairies' Corner with Diana—and there she stood looking at him, but his eyes seemed unable to grasp the reality of the moment.
"Jim, Jim," she said.
It was no dream. With a rush of memory it all came back to him. He quickly rose to his feet and came towards her, impelled by an uncontrollable force. Cobwebs of sunlight were making glinting spaces against the gray-and-green enclosure; a movement began in the tree-tops that brought back the childish reminiscence of the rustling fairy wings. He forgot everything. He only knew that she stood there like an essence of delight to ease his aching being. The still wonder of the evening before was again shining in her luminous face.
He lifted her hands to his shoulders, and held them fast there. To her awakening womanhood he seemed like a young god of nature, who had bathed in the primeval springs and had arisen glorified and overwhelming in his forcefulness. They stood speechless, their gaze fastened each on the other's face, while the moments slipped away. How long they stood there neither realized: the burning intensity of the moments told them more than any words could have conveyed. Both now knew the truth—it downed them with its unflinching eyes; they knew that they were peering close into the core of life, that they had touched at the vital springs of the Great Game. Strong and incessant as the beat of the swaying tree-tops, the bitter knowledge was forced upon them that they could no longer, even to themselves, play a part. Their months of unconscious self-deception had that night been slain; each knew that love triumphant had come into his own.