"Morice," she whispered, and her heart beat in echo of the name as he bent to kiss her.
Over the grey waters came the sighing of the autumn breeze, presaging a storm. Aloft, circling round broken crags and high, gaunt rocks, wheeled the ospreys, uttering their shrill, weird cries.
But dirge of rolling waves and wailing winds mattered nothing to those two who sat sheltered in the rocky cleft, for they were dreaming the golden dream of youth, which may come but once in a lifetime, yet leaves a trail of glory on its path for ever.
Side by side they sat, man and maid, with never a thought of anything beyond that dream, and the knowledge that love had bound them thus together.
But what Eden is long without its serpent? Morice Conyers, basking in present sunshine, suddenly felt a quick chill strike his heart. It was the Marquis de Varenac, noble of Brittany, come purposely to save his country, whom the little Cécile loved.
And the day of reckoning drew near.
But Love is nothing if he be not at his purest and best a reformer.
All the latent manhood, all the better feelings, which ill-training and ill comrades had kept dormant, were stirred to life by this innocent child, whose great eyes shone into his with an expression of perfect trust and love. She called for the highest in him, and that highest, neglected, scarcely acknowledged before, rose in response to the appeal.
He would be what she thought him to be, whatever the cost.
In presence of that dominant passion now stirring and animating him, the past shrank into pitiful insignificance.