And Hector saw it all and understood, and passion surged madly in his veins.  For a mile or two there was silence—­only the moonlight and the swift rushing through the air, and the wild beating of their hearts.  And so they came to the long, dark stretch of wood by St. Cloud.  And the devil whispered sophistries and fate continued to laugh.  Then passion was too strong for him.

“Darling,” he said, and his fine resolutions fled to the winds, while his deep voice was hoarse and broken.  “My darling!—­God!  I love you so—­beyond all words or sense—­Oh, let us be happy for this one night—­we must part afterwards I know, and I will accept that—­but just for to-night there can be no sin and no harm in being a little happy—­when we are going to pay for it with all the rest of our lives.  Let us have the memory of one hour of bliss—­the angels themselves could not grudge us that.”

One hour of bliss out of a lifetime!  Would it be a terrible sin, Theodora wondered, a terrible, unforgivable sin to let him kiss her—­to let him hold her just once in his arms.

There was no light in the coupe—­he had seen to that—­only the great lamps flaring in the road and the moonlight.

She clasped her hands in an agony of emotion.  She was but a dove in the net of an experienced fowler, but she did not know or think of that, nor he either.  They only knew they loved each other passionately, and this situation was more than they could bear.

“Oh, I trust you!” she said.  “If you tell me it is not a terrible sin I will believe you—­I do not know—­I cannot think—­I—­”

But she could speak no more because she was in his arms.

The intense, unutterable joy—­the maddening, intoxicating bliss of the next hour!  To have her there, unresisting—­to caress her lips and eyes and hair—­to murmur love words—­to call her his very own!  Nothing in heaven could equal this, and no hell was a price too great to pay—­so it seemed to him.  It was the supremest moment of his life; and how much more of hers who knew none other, who had never received the kisses of men or thrilled to any touch but his!

After a little she drew herself away and shivered.  She knew she was wicked now—­very, very wicked—­but it was again characteristic of her that having made her decision there was no vacillation about her.  The die was cast—­for that night they were to be happy, and all the rest of her life should be penitence and atonement.

But to-night there was no room for anything but joy.  She had never dreamed in her most secret thoughts of moments so gloriously sweet as these—­to have a lover—­and such a lover!  And it was true—­it must be true—­that they had lived before, and all this passion was not the growth of one short week.

It seemed as if it was all her life, all her being—­it could mean nothing now but Hector—­Hector—­Hector!  And over and over again he made her whisper in his ear that she loved him—­nor could she ever tire of hearing him say he worshipped her.