The soft shiver of the wellnigh surfless sea on a rising tide, rose, fell, rose, fell.  The sand cliff shone like a bank of snow.  And all was inhabited, as a moonlit night is wont to be, by a magical Presence.  A big moth went past her face, so close that she felt the flutter of its wings.  A little night beast somewhere was scruttling in bushes or the sand.  Suddenly, across the wan grass the shadow of the pine-trunk moved.  It moved—­ever so little—­moved!  And, petrified—­Gyp stared.  There, joined to the trunk, Summerhay was standing, his face just visible against the stem, the moonlight on one cheek, a hand shading his eyes.  He moved that hand, held it out in supplication.  For long—­how long—­Gyp did not stir, looking straight at that beseeching figure.  Then, with a feeling she had never known, she saw him coming.  He came up to the verandah and stood looking up at her.  She could see all the workings of his face—­passion, reverence, above all amazement; and she heard his awed whisper: 

“Is it you, Gyp?  Really you?  You look so young—­so young!”

VII

From the moment of surrender, Gyp passed straight into a state the more enchanted because she had never believed in it, had never thought that she could love as she now loved.  Days and nights went by in a sort of dream, and when Summerhay was not with her, she was simply waiting with a smile on her lips for the next hour of meeting.  Just as she had never felt it possible to admit the world into the secrets of her married life, so, now she did not consider the world at all.  Only the thought of her father weighed on her conscience.  He was back in town.  And she felt that she must tell him.  When Summerhay heard this he only said:  “All right, Gyp, whatever you think best.”

And two days before her month at the bungalow was up, she went, leaving Betty and little Gyp to follow on the last day.  Winton, pale and somewhat languid, as men are when they have been cured, found her when he came in from the club.  She had put on evening dress, and above the pallor of her shoulders, her sunwarmed face and throat had almost the colour of a nectarine.  He had never seen her look like that, never seen her eyes so full of light.  And he uttered a quiet grunt of satisfaction.  It was as if a flower, which he had last seen in close and elegant shape, had bloomed in full perfection.  She did not meet his gaze quite steadily and all that evening kept putting her confession off and off.  It was not easy—­far from easy.  At last, when he was smoking his “go-to-bed” cigarette, she took a cushion and sank down on it beside his chair, leaning against his knee, where her face was hidden from him, as on that day after her first ball, when she had listened to his confession.  And she began: 

“Dad, do you remember my saying once that I didn’t understand what you and my mother felt for each other?” Winton did not speak; misgiving had taken possession of him.  Gyp went on:  “I know now how one would rather die than give someone up.”