“Oh, my dear, my dear!  You have come then?” and she stroked his face, and her hands clung about his neck to make very sure.

“Were you afraid that I wouldn’t come, Sylvia?” he asked, with a low, quiet laugh.

She lifted her face into the moonlight, so that he saw at once the tears bright in her eyes and the smile trembling upon her lips.

“No,” she said, “I rather thought that you would come,” and she laughed as she spoke.  Or did she sob?  He could hardly tell, so near she was to both.  “Oh, but I could not be sure!  I wrote with so much unkindness,” and her eyes dropped from his in shame.

“Hush!” he said, and he held her close.

“Have you forgiven me?  Oh, please forgive me!”

“Long since,” said he.

But Sylvia was not reassured.

“Ah, but you won’t forget,” she said, ruefully.  “One can forgive, but one can’t forget what one forgives,” and then since, even in her remorse, hope was uppermost with her that night, she cried, “Oh, Hilary, do you think you ever will forget what I wrote to you?”

And again Chayne laughed quietly at her fears.

“What does it matter what you wrote a week ago, since to-night we are here, you and I—­together, in the moonlight, for all the world to see that we are lovers.”

She drew him quickly aside into the shadow of the wall.

“Are you afraid we should be seen?” he asked.

“No, but afraid we may be interrupted,” she replied, with a clear trill of laughter which showed to her lover that her fears had passed.

“The whole village is asleep, Sylvia,” he said in a whisper; and as he spoke a blind was lifted in an upper story of the house, a window was flung wide, and the light streamed out from it into the moonlit air and spread over their heads like a great, yellow fan.  Walter Hine leaned his elbows on the sill and looked out.

Sylvia moved deeper into the shadow.

“He cannot see us,” said Chayne, with a smile, and he set his arm about her waist; and so they stood very quietly.

The house was built a few yards back from the road, and on each side of it the high wall of the garden curved in toward it, making thus an open graveled space in front of its windows.  Sylvia and her lover stood at one of the corners where the wall curved in; the shadow reached out beyond their feet and lay upon the white road in a black triangle; they could hardly be seen from any window of the house, and certainly they could not be recognized.  But on the other hand they could see.  From behind Walter Hine the light streamed out clear.  The ceiling of the room was visible and the shadow of the lamp upon it, and even the top part of the door in the far corner.

“We will wait until he turns back into the room,” Sylvia whispered; and for a little while they stood and watched.  Then she felt Chayne’s arm tighten about her and hold her still.