And the supreme moment was rushing upon him with the wings of love on a summer’s night, than which no flight of bird is so swift and noiseless. They reached the top of the rocky staircase, and began to descend. A fairy radiance from off the dark-blue mirror of the Atlantic made plain each downward step; but Nancy wore the high-heeled shoes which women affected then more generally than is the fashion today, and Power held her hand lest she slipped and fell. Thus they made their way to the beach, until they had almost negotiated the last short flight. Power, indeed, was standing on the shingle, and the girl—for, married woman though she was, her years were still those of a girl—was poised gracefully on the lowermost slab.
There she hesitated perceptibly. His eyes met hers in a subtle underlook, and he saw that her face was deathly white. Yet there was neither fear nor indecision in her steadfast glance. Even while he asked dumbly why she waited, her lips parted, she held out her hands with a gesture of pleading, and she murmured:
“Oh, Derry, my own dear love, it is not the first but the last step which counts now!”
Then he took her in his arms, and their lips met—and for her there was no uncertainty ever more.
CHAPTER VIII
THE STEP THAT COUNTED
Of course, being a woman, she made believe that he had taken her by storm.
“Derry, dear, how could you?” she gasped, all rosy and breathless, and seemingly much occupied in smoothing her ruffled plumes during the first lull after the hurricane.
“You witch, who could resist you?” he muttered, showing well-marked symptoms of another attack.