"Will you lend me this for a few minutes?" He settled himself behind the folds, a smile on his rather stern face as the lover gazed out of the window.
They had come to that picturesque bridge of stone spanning the valley below the Downs and already the air was sharp and sweet with the first breath of the sea beyond.
Over the smooth curve of the hills a crescent moon was shining clear. The hushed Earth lay beneath, bathed in the silvery light ...
And, suddenly, a memory stirred in the young man's heart, filled with tender dreams of the girl he loved—the echo of long forgotten words.
"It's under the heavy cloud you stand ... the cloud of a lie ... but it clears ... it clears..."
McTaggart started at the thought. Why—by Heaven! she had been right. His "double heart?"
It was a lie. He tried to recall the gypsy's speech, the end of the curious prophecy. What was it she had said of the Moon? and the Tide...? He stared out into the night and slowly it returned to him, with the jingle of bangles, the noise of the Fair.
"Between two fires you will burn and burn—And then ... the light fades ... on the turn of the Tide ... there's the Lucky Moon and the Dream of your life...!"
The dream of his life?—Why, that meant Jill!
*****