He got into his bed and lay with his arm crooked, his cheek in his hand. Part of the Milky Way was visible to him, that dust of little stars powdering the deep of the sky. If he, too, should see a falling star to-night, dropping down towards the hidden sea, vanishing below the line of the hill! Would he echo her wish?
“Are you sleepy, Rosamund?” he asked presently.
“No I don’t want to sleep. It would make me miss all the stars.”
“And if you’re tired to-morrow?”
“I shan’t be. I shan’t be tired while we are in camp. I should like never to go to bed in a room again. I should like always to dwell in the wilderness.”
He longed for the addition of just two words. They did not come. But of course they were to be understood. There is no need to state things known. The fact that she had let him bring her to the wilderness was enough. The last words he heard Rosamund say that night were these, almost whispered slowly to herself and to the stars:
“The wilderness—and—the solitary places.”
Very early in the morning she awoke while Dion was sleeping. She slipped softly out of the little camp-bed, wrapped a cloak around her, and went out to gaze at the dawn.
When they sat at breakfast she said:
“And now are you going to tell me the secret?”