To both, the moments seemed to race by like a golden stream. They hardly seemed to have left the red steps of the garden before they found themselves at Heddington, and Everest ordered tea for them to be brought out on the creeper-covered terrace, that hung over the shining sea.
When they first turned the angle of rock, and came into the small, white-sanded bay and saw the inn just in front of them, in its bridal veil of white roses, the girl sighed and stayed still.
"Oh, I am so sorry to think our walk is over!"
Everest came close to her, slipped his hand through her arm and pressed it.
"Why should you be sorry, darling?" he asked. "We are not going to part here. We shall still be together."
There was a tender accent, a stress of deep feeling in his voice. Her eyes looked up to his face, her breath came and went quickly. She was not to be sorry—and he was not—because they were still together.
So the great fact was voiced between them, and they became aware of the pressing desire, the colossal wish, beside which everything else became insignificant, the wild, passionate longing in each—to be together.
"I know," she said falteringly, after a pause, "but I am so sorry to think that half the time is gone. We are that much nearer to it being over," and from that minute she felt inclined to catch at each moment going by; all of them were wonderful, precious moments, and they shone in her memory afterwards, like golden stars, in the dark nights of her future.
The moment when they entered the cramped dark hall of the inn, where a mysterious blue light reigned, owing to the blue paper covering the glass of the end window, and giving effectively, yet economically, the idea of a stained-glass casement. This blue light, in its novelty, called fresh pleasure to her mind, as she saw the reflection of her own face in the hall mirror float mistily and lily-like in it.