“Here I am.”

He turned round, seized her hand, and, without a word, they passed through the archway.  They walked on the hard sand, side by side, till he said: 

“Let’s go up into the fields.”

They scrambled up the low cliff and went along the grassy top to a gate into a stubble field.  He held it open for her, but, as she passed, caught her in his arms and kissed her lips as if he would never stop.  To her, who had been kissed a thousand times, it was the first kiss.  Deadly pale, she fell back from him against the gate; then, her lips still quivering, her eyes very dark, she looked at him distraught with passion, drunk on that kiss.  And, suddenly turning round to the gate, she laid her arms on the top bar and buried her face on them.  A sob came up in her throat that seemed to tear her to bits, and she cried as if her heart would break.  His timid despairing touches, his voice close to her ear: 

“Gyp, Gyp!  My darling!  My love!  Oh, don’t, Gyp!” were not of the least avail; she could not stop.  That kiss had broken down something in her soul, swept away her life up to that moment, done something terrible and wonderful.  At last, she struggled out: 

“I’m sorry—­so sorry!  Don’t—­don’t look at me!  Go away a little, and I’ll—­I’ll be all right.”

He obeyed without a word, and, passing through the gate, sat down on the edge of the cliff with his back to her, looking out over the sea.

Gripping the wood of the old grey gate till it hurt her hands, Gyp gazed at the chicory flowers and poppies that had grown up again in the stubble field, at the butterflies chasing in the sunlight over the hedge toward the crinkly foam edging the quiet sea till they were but fluttering white specks in the blue.

But when she had rubbed her cheeks and smoothed her face, she was no nearer to feeling that she could trust herself.  What had happened in her was too violent, too sweet, too terrifying.  And going up to him she said: 

“Let me go home now by myself.  Please, let me go, dear.  To-morrow!”

Summerhay looked up.

“Whatever you wish, Gyp—­always!”

He pressed her hand against his cheek, then let it go, and, folding his arms tight, resumed his meaningless stare at the sea.  Gyp turned away.  She crossed back to the other side of the stream, but did not go in for a long time, sitting in the pine wood till the evening gathered and the stars crept out in a sky of that mauve-blue which the psychic say is the soul-garment colour of the good.

Late that night, when she had finished brushing her hair, she opened her window and stepped out on to the verandah.  How warm!  How still!  Not a sound from the sleeping house—­not a breath of wind!  Her face, framed in her hair, her hands, and all her body, felt as if on fire.  The moon behind the pine-tree branches was filling every cranny of her brain with wakefulness.