"Ah!" she answered playfully, though with a touch of sadness—"what an importunate being you have suddenly become! Yet why?—Half your life is hidden from me, dear Laurence, and I do not ask to have it otherwise. Why, then, should not half of mine be hidden from you? Indeed, it is always so between man and woman, I think, whether they know it—as we do—or know it not."
But Laurence was not in the humour to have his inquiry put aside thus lightly.
"Still tell me—tell me," he insisted. "Look here, really I am not unreasonable." He laughed a little, looking at her very charmingly in mingled eagerness and command,—"For your exits and entrances are not as those of other women, Agnes, so tell me. Or let me go with you wheresoever you go. Or just—it is very simple—don't go—stay right here, and brave the glory of the sunrise. Stay!—"
As he spoke, long shafts of pale, golden light shot through the openings between the high-standing trees of the eastern woodland, and lay in misty radiance along the dewy lawns, touching the heads of the cypresses, and flashing upon the upspringing waters of the fountains.
"Ah, have patience—but a little trifle of patience yet, dearest love," Agnes Rivers pleaded. "Only wait, and that which is to be will surely declare itself. I would so gladly stay—or gladly take you with me, going; but I can do neither, though why, I do not at present fully comprehend."
She turned, and for a moment stood facing the sunlight, bright in its royal brightness, looking out on the fair, summer landscape, an infinite hope and yearning in her lovely face. Then she folded her hands high upon her bosom—slightly ruffling the smooth surface of her dainty, muslin cape—bowed her head meekly as in worship, and moved away. As she passed, Laurence—standing a little behind her—for the first time heard the soft sound of her rapid footfall, and the whisper of her silken gown.
The young man, too, worshipped the rising sun after his manner—a manner, it must be admitted, by no means of the meekest. The room was empty, but he did not greatly care, for his great purpose seemed so close upon consummation. The crisis was very near now. Before that splendid, June sun rose to-morrow—so he told himself—his work would be complete. She was so nearly human, his dear fairy-lady; her pure spirit so strangely, yet sensibly, in process of clothing itself with sweet, living flesh. He would set bread and wine before her, in the small hours when this bright day was dead. She should eat and drink of a sacramental feast, designed to secure, not eternal life to the soul, in this case, but mortal life to the beautiful, young body which he so desired and loved.
Thus did Laurence Rivers hail the sunrise, filled with an immense pride of his own action, his own will, and the powers of his race, deeming himself a worker of miracles and equal of the immortal gods.