In a few words she related what had happened, winding up: 

“Afterwards, I suppose I must have fainted.  Oh!”—­with a shiver of remembrance—­“It was simply ghastly!  I’ve never felt giddy in my life before—­and hope I never may again!  It’s just as if the bottom of the world had fallen out and left you hanging in mid-air! . . .  I knew I couldn’t face the climb down again, so—­so I just went to sleep.  I thought some of you would be sure to come to look for me.”

“You knew I should come,” he said, a sudden deep insistence in his voice.  “Nan, didn’t you know it?”

She lifted her head.

“Yes.  I think—­I think I knew you would come, Peter,” she answered unsteadily.

The moonlight fell full upon her—­upon a white, strained face with passionate, unkissed lips, and eyes that looked bravely into his, refusing to shirk the ultimate significance which underlay his question.

With a stifled exclamation he swept her up into his arms and his mouth met hers in the first kiss that had ever passed between them—­a kiss which held infinite tenderness, and the fierce passion that is part of love, and a foreshadowing of the pain of separation.

“My beloved!” He held her a little away from him so that he might look into her face.  Then with a swift, passionate eagerness; “Say that you love me, Nan?”

“Why, Peter—­Peter, you know it,” she cried tremulously.  “It doesn’t need telling, dear. . . .  Only—­it’s forbidden.”

“Yes,” he assented gravely.  “It’s forbidden us.  But now—­just this once—­let us have a few moments, you and I alone, when there’s no need to pretend we don’t care—­when we can be ourselves!”

“No—­no—­” she broke in breathlessly.

“It’s not much, to ask—­five minutes together out of the whole of life!  Roger can’t grudge them.  He’ll have you—­always.”  His arms closed jealously round her.

“Yes—­always,” she repeated.  With a sudden choked cry she clung to him despairingly.

“Peter, sometimes I feel I can’t bear it!  Oh, why were we allowed to care like this?”

“God knows!” he muttered.

He released his hold of her abruptly and began pacing up and down—­savagely, like some caged beast.  Nan stood staring out over the moon-washed sea with eyes that saw nothing.  The five minutes they had snatched together from the rest of life were slipping by—­each one a moment of bitter and intolerable anguish.

Presently Peter swung round and came to her side.  But he did not touch her.  His face looked drawn, and his eyes burned smoulderingly—­like fire half-quenched.

“Nan, if I didn’t care so much, I’d ask you to go away with me.  I—­don’t quite know what life will be like without you—­hell, probably.  But at least it’s going to be my own little hell and I’m not going to drag you down into it.  I’m bound irrevocably.  And you—­you’re bound, too.  You can’t play fast and loose with the promise you’ve given Trenby.  So we’ve just got to face it out.”  He broke off abruptly.  Tiny beads of sweat rimmed his upper lip and his hands hung clenched at his sides.  Even Nan hardly realised the effort his restraint was costing him.