There, sparkling in the fire-glow, was the desire of the world, the white, streaming flame of diamonds, the heart’s blood of rubies, and sapphires—­the blue of the sea and the sky—­all their life and radiance imprisoned in a dew-drop.

“How beautiful they are!” he cried involuntarily, but what he really meant was, “How beautiful you are!”

She started and looked up at him in surprise.  “Yes, they are,” she said.  “I have been gathering them for a long time.  There are only a few, but every one is flawless.”

“I never considered jewels before.”  He bent forward the better to see them.  “I have often seen women wear them, but I just regarded them as a part of their decoration.  Yet I can understand now why you love them.  They are very beautiful, unset that way.”  He looked at her deeply.  “But I believe it is for some reason deeper than that that they have a fascination for you.  You are like them.”

She let them fall like drops of rainbow water through her fingers; then she lifted her lashes.  “Am I hard and cold like them?” She sent darting and dazzling full in his eyes her baffling, heart-shivering smile.

He did not answer at once, and she, still gazing at him, saw that he paled visibly, every tinge of color receding from his face; his eyes, deep and dark, held hers, as if reading her soul and demanding that she reveal the strange secrets of her nature.

The forces of life ready to burst through the harsh crust of the earth without and express themselves in the innocent glory of flower and grass and tender, green leaves, and the sound of birds, were now seeking expression through denser and more complex human avenues.  All the love, all the longing which Seagreave had so sternly suppressed during these days he and Pearl had spent together, rose in his heart and threatened to sweep away in a mighty tide of elemental impulses all of those resolutions of restraint to which he had clung so hardly.

He arose and leaned his arm on the mantel-piece, still gazing at her as if he could never withdraw his eyes.  “You are so—­so beautiful,” he stammered, scarcely knowing what he said.  “The world will claim you.  You have so much to give it and all your nature, all your heart turns to it.  You will soon forget this hut in the mountains, and—­and all that it has meant.”  He buried his head in his arms.

She, too, rose and laid the handful of her jewels on the table without another glance at them.  “These mountains!” She threw wide her arms and drew a long, ecstatic breath.  She came near to him and touched his arm.  “I hated them once, I love them now.”  She smiled up at him, her darkly slumbrous, scarlet-lipped smile.

He leaned toward her as if to clasp her close, but the vows he had sworn to himself a thousand times since she had been in his cabin alone with him still held him.  Slowly he drew back and with all the strength of his nature fought for self-control.  He called upon every force of his will, and in that supreme moment his face hardened to the appearance of a sculptured mask; all of its finely-drawn outlines seemed set in stone.