"Then I must go."
"You leave me—we may never meet again."
"The Virgin watch over you," she faltered.
"Will you go without one parting embrace—ah! the world is wide and danger lurks everywhere when people are at war. One kiss sweetheart, of your own free will—it may be a talisman to guard me against evil."
He pleaded not in vain.
A pair of soft arms were thrown around his neck, and not one but a dozen kisses rained upon his lips—then when he would have sought to detain her she eluded his grasp and flitted away in the dark, her gentle "adios, beloved," sounding like a benediction to his ravished ears.
A few minutes later he heard the roll of wheels, as the jaunting car took them to the distant quay.
"She is gone, Heaven bless her," he muttered—"lucky man that I am, thrice blessed to be beloved by two such charming creatures; to me there is only one who can fill the longing of my heart and she has just left me."
And this was the reason Roderic turned up at the Shelbourne late that night looking like a man who had supped with adventure.