“I thank God for it,” he said.

So they stood clinging together in that dim place, and broken, whispering speech passed between them or long silences when speech was done.  But at last they went down the stairs and out upon the open terrace, where the moonlight lay.

“It Was in the open, sweet air,” the girl said, “that we came to know each other.  Let us walk in it now.  The house smothers me.”  She looked up when they had passed the west corner of the facade and drew a little sigh.  “I am worried about my father,” said she.  “He will not answer me when I call to him, and he has eaten nothing all day long.  Bayard, I think his heart is broken.  Ah, but to-morrow we shall mend it again!  In the morning I shall make him let me in, and I shall tell him—­what I have to tell.”

They turned down under the trees, where the moonlight made silver splashes about their feet, and the sweet night air bore soft against their faces.  Coira went a half-step in advance, her head laid back upon the shoulder of the man she loved, and his arm held her up from falling.

So at last we leave them, walking there in the tender moonlight, with the breath of roses about them and their eyes turned to the coming day.  It is still night and there is yet one cloud of sorrow to shadow them somewhat, for up-stairs in his locked room a man lies dead across the floor, with an empty pistol beside him—­heart-broken, as the girl had feared.  But where a great love is, shadows cannot last very long, not even such shadows as this.  The morning must dawn—­and joy cometh of a morning.

So we leave them walking together in the moonlight, their faces turned toward the coming day.

THE END