"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Cherry whispered, on a breath of utter distress. "I'm so sorry! Oh, Peter, we never should have let it happen--our caring for each other!--we never should have allowed ourselves to think--to dream--of such a thing! Oh, Peter, I'm so sick about it," Cherry added, incoherently, with filling eyes. "I'm just sick about it! I know--I know that Alix would never have permitted herself to--I know she wouldn't!"
He was close to her, and now he laid his hand over hers.
"I care--" he said, quite involuntarily, "I have always cared for you! I know it's madness--I know it's too late--but I love every hair of your beautiful head! Cherry--Cherry--!"
They had both gotten to their feet, and now she essayed to pass him, her face white, her cheeks blazing. He stopped her, and held her close in his arms, and after a few seconds he felt her resisting muscles relax, and they kissed each other.
For a full dizzy minute they clung together, arms locked, hearts beating madly and close, and lips meeting again and again. Breathless, Cherry wrenched herself free, and turned to drop into a chair, and breathless, Peter stood looking down upon her. About them was the silence of the dripping garden; all the sounds of the world came muffled and dull through the thick mist.
Then Peter knelt down beside her chair, and gathered her hands together in his own, and she rested her forehead on his, and spent and silent, leaned against his shoulder. And so they remained, not speaking, for a long while. Kow clinked dishes somewhere in a faraway kitchen, and the fog-horn boomed and was still-boomed and was still. But here on the porch there was no sound.
"Cherry, tell me that you care for me a little?" Peter said after awhile, and he felt as if he met a new Cherry, among all the strange new Cherries that the past bewildering week had shown him, when she answered passionately:
"Oh, Peter--Peter--if I did not!"
He tightened his fingers about her own, but did not answer, and it was presently Cherry who broke the brooding, misty silence again.
"What shall we do?" she asked, in a small, tired voice.