She said, still looking down at his hands held between her own: 

“A girl who has done what I have done, loses her bearings....  I don’t know yet how desperately bad I am.  However, one thing remains clear—­only one—­that no harm could come to—­my family—­even if I have given myself to you.  And when I did it, only the cowardly idea that I was wronging myself persisted.  If that is my only sin—­you are worth it.  And if I committed worse—­I am not repentant.  But—­dear, what you have done to me has so utterly changed me that—­things that I never before heeded or comprehended trouble me.  Yesterday I could not have understood what to-night I have done.  So, if there lies any unknown peril in to-morrow, or the days to come—­if you love me you will tell me....  Yet I cannot believe in it.  Dearly as I love you I would not raise one finger to comfort you at their expense.  I would not go away with you; I would not seek my freedom for your sake.  If there is in my love anything base or selfish I am not conscious of it.  I cannot marry you; I can only live on, loving you.  What danger can there be in that for you and me?”

“None,” he said.

She sighed happily, lifted her eyes, yielded to his arms, sighing her heart out, lips against his.

Somewhere in the forest a bird awoke singing like a soul in Paradise.

CHAPTER XVI

AN ULTIMATUM

With the beginning of March the end of the so-called social season, south of Jupiter Light, is close at hand.  First, the great winter hotels close; then, one by one, doors and gates of villa and cottage are locked, bright awnings and lawn shades furled and laid away, blinds bolted, flags lowered.  All summer long villa and caravansary alike stand sealed and silent amid their gardens, blazing under the pale fierce splendour of an unclouded sky; tenantless, save where, beside opened doors of quarters, black recumbent figures sprawl asleep, shiny faces fairly sizzling in the rays of a vertical sun.

The row of shops facing the gardens, the white streets, quay, pier, wharf are deserted and silent.  Rarely a human being passes; the sands are abandoned except by some stray beach-comber; only at the station remains any sign of life where trains are being loaded for the North, or roll in across the long draw-bridge, steaming south to that magic port from which the white P. and O. steamers sail away into regions of eternal sunshine.

So passes Palm Beach into its long summer sleep; and the haunts of men are desolate.  But it is otherwise with the Wild.

Night and the March moon awake the winter-dormant wilderness from the white man’s deadening spell.  Now, unrestrained, the sound of negro singing floats inland on the sea-wind from inlet, bar, and glassy-still lagoon; great, cumbersome, shadowy things lumber down to tidewater—­huge turtles on egg-laying intent.  In the dune-hammock the black bear, crab-hungry, awakes from his December sleep and claws the palmetto fruit; the bay lynx steals beachward; a dozen little deaths hatch from the diamond-back, alive; and the mean gray fox uncurls and scratches ticks, grinning, red-gummed, at the moon.