“No!” she whispered, faintly.

“There isn’t anything so beautiful to me upon God’s earth,” he continued, “as the love in my heart for you.  I wanted to tell you so this evening.  I have brought you here to tell you so—­to this particular spot.  Something tells me that it may be almost our last chance.  I left those two whispering upon the lawn.  What is it they are planning, I wonder?  That man Bomford is no companion for your father.  He has given him an idea about me and my story.  What is it, I wonder?  To rob me, to throw me out, to take my treasure from me by force?”

“You are my father’s guest,” she reminded him softly.  “He will not forget it.”

“There are greater things in the world,” he went on, “than the obligations of hospitality.  There are tides which sweep away the landmarks of nature herself.  Your father is thirsty for knowledge.  This man Bomford is his friend.  There have been more crimes committed in the world for lofty motives than one hears of.”

He leaned a little forward.  They could see the smoke curling up from the house below, its gardens laid out like patchwork, the low house itself covered with creepers.

“It was an idyll, that,” he went on.  “Bomford’s trail is about the place now, the trail of some poisonous creature.  Nothing will ever be the same.  I want to remember this last evening.  I have looked upon life from the hill tops and I have looked at it along the level ways, but I have seen nothing in it so beautiful, I have felt nothing in it so wonderful, as my love for you.  You were a dream to me before, half hidden, only partly realized.  Soon you will be a dream to me again.  But never, never, dear, since the magic brush painted the blue into the skies, the purple on to the heather, the green on to the grass, the yellow into the gorse, the blue into your eyes, was there any love like mine!”

She leaned towards him.  Her fingers were cold and her voice trembled.

“You must not!” she begged.

He smiled as he passed his arm around her.

“Are we not on the hill top, dear?” he said.  “You need have no fear.  Only to-night I felt that I must say these things to you, even though the passion which they represent remains as ineffective forever as the words themselves.  I have a feeling, you know, that after to-day things will be different.”

“Why should they be?” she asked.  “In any case, your time cannot come yet.”

Once more he looked downward into the valley.  Like a little speck along the road a motor-car was crawling along.

“It is Mr. Bomford,” he said.  “He is coming to look for you.”

She rose to her feet.  Together they stood, for a moment, hand in hand, looking down upon the flaming landscape.  The fields at their feet were brilliant with color; in the far distance the haze of the sea.  Their fingers were locked.

“Mr. Bomford,” he sighed, “is coming up the hill.”