“Can they guess that I am younger than they are?” she thought.  “And would I have them?  Would I share that secret with any in the world—­but one?  Do I want to dance—­to dance—­Good God!  And talk nonsense and the gossip of the Island with these youths when I have naught to say but that my soul has grown wings and that the cold lamp in my breast has blown out, and lit again with the flame that keeps the world alive?  Even if I think it best never to see him again, he has given me that, and I am young at last.”

When she returned home, as the guinea fowl were at their raucous matins, she was able to tell her mother that the Scot had not attended the ball, and Mary Fawcett knew that Dr. Hamilton had managed to detain him.

But a fortnight later they met again at the house of Dr. George Irwin, an intimate friend of the Hamiltons.

The Irwin’s house in Basseterre was on the north side of the Park, which was surrounded by other fine dwellings and several public buildings.  The broad verandahs almost overhung the enclosure, with its great banyan tree, the royal palms about the fountain, the close avenues, the flaming hedges of croton and hybiscus, and the traveller’s palm and tree ferns brought from the mountains.  When a ball was given at one of the houses about this Park on a moonlight night, there was much scheming to avoid the watchful eyes of lawful guardians.

It was inevitable that Hamilton should attend this ball, for the Irwins and his relatives were in and out of each other’s houses all day and half the night.  By this time, however, he had met nearly every girl on St. Kitts, and his cousin had ridden out that afternoon to assure Mistress Fawcett that the danger weakened daily.

But for an hour, he did not leave Rachael’s side that night.  The beauties of St. Christopher—­and they were many, with their porcelain-like complexions and distinguished features—­went through all their graceful creole paces in vain.  That he was recklessly in love with Rachael Levine was manifest to all who chose to look, and as undaunted by her intellect and history as any man of his cousin’s mature coterie.  As for Rachael, although she distributed her favours impartially for a while, her mobile face betrayed to Dr. Hamilton that mind and body were steeped in that tremulous content which possesses a woman when close to an undeclared lover in a public place; the man, and Life and her own emotions unmortalized, the very future bounded by the gala walls, the music, the lights, and the perfume of flowers.  These walls were hung with branches of orange trees loaded with fruit, and with ferns and orchids brought fresh from the mountains.  A band of blacks played on their native instruments the fashionable dances of the day with a weird and barbaric effect, and occasionally sang a wailing accompaniment in voices of indescribable softness.  There was light from fifty candles, and the eternal breeze lifted and dispersed the heavy