And Roy stood before her—­motionless; stirred all through by the thrill of her exalted passion, of her strange appeal.  The pathos—­the nobility of it—­swept him a little off his feet.  It seemed as if, till to-night, he had scarcely known her.  The Eastern in him said, ‘Accept.’  The Englishman demurred—­’Unfair on her.’

“My dear——­” he said—­“I can refuse you nothing.  But—­is it right?  You should marry——­”

“Don’t trouble your mind for me,” she murmured; and her eyes never left his face.  “If I keep out of purdah, becoming Brahmo Samaj ... perhaps——­” She drew in her full lower lip to steady it.  “But the marriage of arrangement—­I cannot.  I have read too many English books, thought too many English thoughts.  And I know in here”—­one clenched hand smote her breast—­“that now I could not give my body and life to any man, unless heart and mind are given too.  And for me....  Must I tell all?  It is not only these few weeks.  It is years and years....”  Her voice broke.

“Aruna!  Dearest one——­”

He opened his arms to her—­and she was on his breast.  Close and tenderly he held her, putting a strong constraint on himself lest her ecstasy of surrender should bear down all his defences.  To fail her like this was a bitter thing:  and as her arms stole up round his neck, he instinctively tightened his hold.  So yielding she was, so unsubstantial....

And suddenly a rush of memory wafted him from the moonlit hillside to the drawing-room at Home.  It was his mother he held against his breast:—­the silken draperies, the clinging arms, the yielding softness, the unyielding courage at the core....

So vivid, so poignant was the lightning gleam of illusion, that when it passed he felt dizzy, as if his body had been swept in the wake of his spirit, a thousand leagues and back:  dizzy, yet, in some mysterious fashion, reinforced—­assured....

He knew now that his defences would hold....

And Aruna, utterly at rest in his arms, knew it also.  He loved her—­oh yes, truly—­as much as he said and more; but instinct told her there lacked ... just something; something that would have set him—­and her—­on fire, and perhaps have made renunciation unthinkable.  Her acute, instinctive sense of it, hurt like the edge of a knife pressed on her heart; yet just enabled her to bear the unbearable.  Had it been ..._that_ way, to lose him were utter loss.  This way—­there would be no losing.  What she had now, she would keep—­whether his bodily presence were with her or no——­

Next minute, she dropped from the heights.  Fire ran in her veins.  His lips were on her forehead.

“The seal of betrothal,” he whispered.  “My brave Aruna——­”

Without a word she put up her face like a child; but it was very woman who yielded her lips to his....

For her, in that supreme moment, the years that were past and the years that were to come seemed gathered into a burnt-offering—­laid on his shrine.  For her, that long kiss held much of passion—­confessed yet transcended; more of sacredness, inexpressible, because it would never come again—­with him or any other man.  She vowed it silently to her own heart....