“Stay in the tent.”

“But we’ll get wet, won’t we?”

“No; we’ll be upon the spruce-tops; the water will run under us.”

“Aren’t there animals in the wood?”

“Yes.”

“What will you do if they come about?”

“I think I’ll kiss you.”

The Empress of the World did not seem to fully enter into the spirit of his carelessness.

She had her imaginings, after all.  She knew that she was all right, somehow, yet she did not quite comprehend.  But she knew her royalty.

She rose and went to the entrance of the tent, and stepped in daintily, and sat down in another chair which had been placed there for her reception, and then inhaled all the sweetness of the spruce-tips, and pitched herself down upon the quilts, and curled herself up there for a moment or two, and then rose and came out again into the open, where her husband stood watching her.

“Do you like the woods, dear?” he said.

“Don’t you see?”

He said nothing, but led her majesty to a seat for a time, while he got ready for the evening meal—­of food from the town for this first time—­and then, in a courtier’s way, of course, suggested, that she aid him.

They cooked and ate the strips of bacon with the soft stale bread he had brought, and drank the tea, and the shadows of the trees lengthened across the glade, and the chestnut-hued setter came back to camp and was gravely reprimanded by his master, and it soon became night, and time passed, and the fire flashed against the greenery strangely, and the man took the woman by the hand and led her to the entrance to the tent, and said: 

“We must rise early.”

She entered the tent, and not long later he entered, also, or thought to do so.  He lifted the flap, which he had let down, and looked inside.

She lay there upon the cushioned spruce-tips, and, as he raised the white curtain, the moonlight streamed in upon her.

She looked up at him, and smiled.

The loving face of her was all he saw—­the face of the one woman.

He spoke to her.  He tried to tell her what she was to him, and failed. 
She answered gently and in few words.  They understood.

He entered the tent and sat upon the couch beside her as she was lying there, and took her small hand in his, but said no more.  From the wood about them—­for it was into the night now—­came many sounds, known of old, and wonderfully sweet to him, but all new and strange to her.

“Ah-rr-oomp, ah-rr-oomp, ba-rr-oomp,” came from the edge of the water the deep cry of the bullfrog; from the further end of the lake came the strange gobble, gurgle and gulp of the shitepoke, the small green heron which is the flitting ghost of shaded creeks and haunting thing of marshy courses everywhere.  Night-hawks, far above, cried with a pleasant monotony, then swooped downward with a zip and boom.  It