Emily had passed upstairs and gone to her bedroom but a moment before, treading with quick soundless steps.  When Wilfrid left her in the summer-house, she stood unmoving, and only after a minute or two changed her attitude by putting her palms against her face, as if in the gloom she found too much light.  It was a sensation of shame which came upon her, a tremor of maidenhood in re-living, swift instant by instant, all that had just passed.  Had she in any way aided in bringing about that confession?  Had she done anything, made a motion, uttered a tone, which broke away the barrier between herself and him?  When she could recover self-consciousness, disembarrass herself of the phantom moments which would not fleet with the rest of time, it was scarcely joy which she read in her heart; apprehension, dismay, lack of courage to look forward beyond this night, these oppressed her.  Then, close upon the haunting reality of his voice, his touch, came inability to believe what had happened.  Had a transient dreamful slumber crept upon her as she sat here alone?  So quickly had the world suffered re-creation, so magical the whelming of old days in a new order, so complete the change in herself.  One word she knew which had power from eternity to do these things, and that word neither he nor she had uttered.  But there was no need, when the night spoke it in every beat of time.

Fearful of being seen, she at length ventured to return to the house.  Moonlight streamed full upon her bed; it would have irked her as yet to take off her clothes, she lay in the radiance, which seemed to touch her with warm influences, and let her eyes rest upon the source of light.  Then at length joy came and throned in her heart, joy that would mate with no anxious thought, no tremulous brooding.  This was her night!  There might be other happy beings in the world to whom it was also the beginning of new life, but in her name was its consecration, hers the supremacy of blessedness.  Let the morrow wait on the hour of waking, if indeed sleep would ever come; this moment, the sacred now, was all that she could comprehend.

She undressed at length, and even slept, fitfully, always to start into wakefulness with a sense of something to be thought upon, to be realised, to be done.  The weariness of excitement perturbed her joy; the meeting which was to take place in a few hours became a nervous preoccupation.  The moonlight had died away; the cold light of dawn began to make objects in the room distinct.  Was it good to have consented so readily to meet him?  Nay, but no choice had been left her; his eagerness would take no refusal; and it was impossible for things to remain as they were, without calmer talk between them.  It was her resource to remember his energetic will, his force of character; the happiness of passively submitting to what he might dictate; sure of his scrupulous honour, his high ideal.  Could she indeed have borne to