The warning voice of the wisdom she had learnt from him whispered: "And it rests with you to keep him so."
He led her to her tree, where she seated herself regally as before. He poured his sheaves of hyacinths as tribute into her lap. As his hands touched hers her cold face flushed again and softened. He stretched himself beside her and love stirred in her heart, unforbidden, as in a happy dream. He watched the movements of her delicate fingers as they played with the tangled hyacinth bells. Her hands were wet with the thick streaming juice of the torn stalks; she stretched them out to him helplessly. He knelt before her, and spread his handkerchief on his knees, and took her hands and wiped them. She let them rest in his for a moment, and, with a low, panting cry, he bowed his head and covered them with kisses.
At his cry her lips parted. And as her soul had called to him across the spiritual ramparts, so her eyes said to him: "Come"; and he knew that with all her body and her soul she yearned to him and consented.
He held her tight by the wrists and drew her to him; and she laid her arms lightly on his neck and kissed him.
"I'm glad now," she whispered, "that Edith didn't tell me. She knew you. Oh, my dear, she knew."
And to herself she said proudly: "It rests with me."