Madame stirred in her sleep. Then she called, drowsily: "Alden! Edith!" No one answered, because no one heard. She got up, smothering a yawn behind her hand, wondered that there were no lights, waited a moment, heard nothing, and came to the window.
The moon flooded the earth with enchantment—a silvery ocean of light breaking upon earth-bound shores. A path of it lay along the veranda—opal and tourmaline and pearl, sharply turned aside by the shadow of the rose.
Madame drew her breath quickly. There they stood, partly in the dusk and partly in the light, close in each other's arms, with the misty silver lying lovingly upon Edith's hair.
Pledges of Love
She sank back into a chair, remembering, with vague terror, the vision she had seen in the crystal ball. So, then, it was true, as she might have known. Sorely troubled, and with her heart aching for them both, she crept up-stairs.
"Boy," whispered Edith, shrinking from him. "Oh, Boy! The whole world lies between you and me!"
His only answer was to hold her closer still, to turn her mouth again to his. "Not to-night," he breathed, with his lips on hers. "God has given us to-night!"
White and shaken, but with her eyes shining like stars, at last she broke away from him. She turned toward the house, but he caught her and held her back.
"Say it,"he pleaded. "Say you love me!"