"Just seven."
"Have you heard from Rose Darragh?"
"Yes. She's been doing her work and mine, too. She begs me to stay another two weeks, but I must not. There is no need—I am perfectly well again—it would only be selfish enjoyment."
"I wish it were possible—but if it's not, it's not.... Oh, how large the moon is! You can almost see it a globe—it is like a beautiful, lighted Japanese lantern."
"Where will we go to-morrow afternoon?"
"We cannot go anywhere to-morrow afternoon, for, alas! I have to go to a garden-party at Government House. But the next day we might go to Old Fort. What is that fragrance—those strange lilies? Look now at the Japanese lantern!"
They went to Old Fort and came back in the warm evening light, driving close to the sounding sea. "Five days now," said Denny. "Well, I have been so happy."
That night Hagar could not sleep. She rose at last from the bed and paced her moon-flooded room. All the long windows were wide; the night air came in and brought a sighing of the trees. After a while she stepped out upon the gallery that ran along the face of the house. Medway's room was down stairs and away from this front; she had the long silvered pathway to herself. She paced it slowly, up and down, wooing calm. Each time she reached the end of the gallery, she paused a moment and looked across the sleeping town that lay for the most part below this house and garden, to where she could guess the roof of the small, inexpensive, half hotel, half boarding-house where Denny bided. When after a time she discovered that she was doing this, she shook herself away from the action. "No, Hagar, no!"
Going to the other end of the gallery, she found there a low chair and sat down, leaning her head against the railing. It was the middle of the night. Something in the place and in the balm of the air brought back to her those days and nights in Alexandria, so long ago. There, too, she had had to make choice.... "I could love him here and now—love him—love him in the old immemorial way.... Well, I will not!" She put her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands. "Rose Darragh—Rose Darragh—Rose Darragh"—it struck through her mind, slow and heavily vibrant, like a deep and melancholy music. She rose and paced the gallery again, but when she came to the farther end, she turned without pause or look over the moonlit town.
"Rose Darragh—Rose Darragh"—she made it rhythmic, breathing deeply and quietly, saying the name inwardly, deeply, but without passion now, saying it like a comrade's name. "Rose Darragh—Rose Darragh—Rose Darragh—"