The hall-door was closed and all but one car had driven away when they turned the corner of the house and came out in the broad drive.  They walked in the moonlight with a perfume of flowers in the air and the big yellow cups of the evening primroses gleaming on either side.  They walked slowly.  Stella knew that she should quicken her feet but she could not bring herself to do more than know it.  She sought to take into her heart every tiniest detail of that walk so that in memory she might, years after, walk it again and so never be quite alone.  They passed out through the great iron gates and turned into the lane.  Here great elms overhung and now they walked in darkness, and now again were bathed in light.  A twig snapped beneath her foot; even so small a thing she would remember.

“We must hurry,” she said.

“We are doing all that we can,” replied Dick.  “It’s a long way—­this walk.”

“You feel it so?” said Stella, tempting him—­oh, unwisely!  But the spell of the hour and the place was upon her.

“Yes,” he answered her.  “It’s a long way in a man’s life,” and he drew close to her side.

“No!” she cried with a sudden violence.  But she was awake too late.  “No, Dick, no,” she repeated, but his arms were about her.

“Stella, I want you.  Oh, life’s dull for a man without a woman; I can tell you,” he exclaimed passionately.

“There are others—­plenty,” she said, and tried to thrust him away.

“Not for me,” he rejoined, and he would not let her go.  Her struggles ceased, she buried her face in his coat, her hands caught his shoulders, she stood trembling and shivering against him.

“Stella,” he whispered.  “Stella!”

He raised her face and bent to it.  Then he straightened himself.

“Not here!” he said.

They were standing in the darkness of a tree.  He put his arms about her waist and lifted her into an open space where the moonlight shone bright and clear and there were no shadows.

“Here,” he said, and he kissed her on the lips.  She thrust her head back, her face uplifted to the skies, her eyes closed.

“Oh, Dick,” she murmured, “I meant that this should never be.  Even now—­you shall forget it.”

“No—­I couldn’t.”

“So one says.  But—­oh, it would be your ruin.”  She started away from him.

“Listen!”

“Yes,” he answered.

She stood confronting him desperately a yard or so away, her bosom heaving, her face wet with her tears.  Dick Hazlewood did not stir.  Stella’s lips moved as though she were speaking but no words were audible, and it seemed that her strength left her.  She came suddenly forward, groping with her hands like a blind person.

“Oh, my dear,” she said as he caught them.  They went on again together.  She spoke of his father, of the talk of the countryside.  But he had an argument for each of hers.