her close, and kissed her hair.  How long they stood there without speaking he knew not.  The stream went on chattering, the owls hooting, the moon kept stealing up and growing whiter; the blossom all round them and above brightened in suspense of living beauty.  Their lips had sought each other’s, and they did not speak.  The moment speech began all would be unreal!  Spring has no speech, nothing but rustling and whispering.  Spring has so much more than speech in its unfolding flowers and leaves, and the coursing of its streams, and in its sweet restless seeking!  And sometimes spring will come alive, and, like a mysterious Presence stand, encircling lovers with its arms, laying on them the fingers of enchantment, so that, standing lips to lips, they forget everything but just a kiss.  While her heart beat against him, and her lips quivered on his, Ashurst felt nothing but simple rapture—­Destiny meant her for his arms, Love could not be flouted!  But when their lips parted for breath, division began again at once.  Only, passion now was so much the stronger, and he sighed: 

“Oh!  Megan!  Why did you come?” She looked up, hurt, amazed.

“Sir, you asked me to.”

“Don’t call me ‘sir,’ my pretty sweet.”  “What should I be callin” you?”

“Frank.”

“I could not.  Oh, no!”

“But you love me—­don’t you?”

“I could not help lovin’ you.  I want to be with you—­that’s all.”

“All!”

So faint that he hardly heard, she whispered:  “I shall die if I can’t be with you.”

Ashurst took a mighty breath.

“Come and be with me, then!”

“Oh!”

Intoxicated by the awe and rapture in that “Oh!” he went on, whispering: 

“We’ll go to London.  I’ll show you the world.

“And I will take care of you, I promise, Megan.  I’ll never be a brute to you!”

“If I can be with you—­that is all.”

He stroked her hair, and whispered on: 

“To-morrow I’ll go to Torquay and get some money, and get you some clothes that won’t be noticed, and then we’ll steal away.  And when we get to London, soon perhaps, if you love me well enough, we’ll be married.”

He could feel her hair shiver with the shake of her head.

“Oh, no!  I could not.  I only want to be with you!”

Drunk on his own chivalry, Ashurst went on murmuring, “It’s I who am not good enough for you.  Oh!  Megan, when did you begin to love me?”

“When I saw you in the road, and you looked at me.  The first night I loved you; but I never thought you would want me.”

She slipped down suddenly to her knees, trying to kiss his feet.

A shiver of horror went through Ashurst; he lifted her up bodily and held her fast—­too upset to speak.

She whispered:  “Why won’t you let me?”

“It’s I who will kiss your feet!”

Her smile brought tears into his eyes.  The whiteness of her moonlit face so close to his, the faint pink of her opened lips, had the living unearthly beauty of the apple blossom.