"Escape me?
Never—
Beloved!
While I am I and you are you,
So long as the world contains us both,
Me the loving and you the loth,
While the one eludes must the other pursue."
—ROBERT BROWNING.
The delicate veil of sapphire which June calls night was drawn across the splendour of the sky; and it was like the device of a beauty who wears a transparent gauze to enhance the glitter of her diamonds.
In the north still lingered a supernal glow, the hint of the day that has no night.
The fragrance of unseen cottage gardens was all about Hubert as he walked slowly up the lane from the inn. There was no moon. The glimmer of starshine made mysterious radiance, yet left a soft, velvet dusk, without the clean-cut lights and shades of moonlight.
He had bathed, changed, dined. Now he was coming to ascertain the result of his daring experiment. Had he succeeded, as he hoped, in showing Melicent her own heart?
He had no remorse. The thing was necessary; it had to be done. Could he stand by and see a proud girl wreck three lives?
It was very dark among the lilacs by the cottage gate. Peering through the thick boughs, he started; for there was no lamplight, either in the parlour or the room above it. And he believed that she had fled from him.
This gave a jolt to the pleasing elation of his spirits. Walking on the grass, he approached the open door without noise. Then he halted.
The casements of the parlour were wide open to the summer night. On the window-sill lay a girl's abased head, the fair hair just touched by the star-glimmer, the face hidden in her arms.
She lay very still, and was apparently not weeping. He went up to her, resisting with firmness his great desire to lay his hand upon her hair. For the first time in years he spoke the name that stood for all his ambitions.