She gazed up at him with perfect trust in those luminous dark eyes of hers.  “I will, Bertram,” she said firmly.  She knew not herself what his kiss had done for her; but one thing she knew:  from the moment their lips met, she had felt and understood in a flood of vision that perfect love which casteth out fear, and was no longer afraid of him.

“That’s right, darling,” the man answered, stooping down and laying his cheek against her own once more.  “You are mine, and I am yours.  You are not and never were Robert Monteith’s, my Frida.  So now, good-night, till Monday at two, beside the stile in Middle Mill Meadows!”

She clung to him for a moment in a passionate embrace.  He let her stop there, while he smoothed her dark hair with one free hand.  Then suddenly, with a burst, the older feelings of her race overcame her for a minute; she broke from his grasp and hid her head, all crimson, in a cushion on the sofa.  One second later, again, she lifted her face unabashed.  The new impulse stirred her.  “I’m proud I love you, Bertram,” she cried, with red lips and flashing eyes; “and I’m proud you love me!”

With that, she slipped quietly out, and walked, erect and graceful, no longer ashamed, down the lodging-house passage.

X

When she returned, Robert Monteith sat asleep over his paper in his easy-chair.  It was his wont at night when he returned from business.  Frida cast one contemptuous glance as she passed at his burly, unintelligent form, and went up to her bedroom.

But all that night long she never slept.  Her head was too full of Bertram Ingledew.

Yet, strange to say, she felt not one qualm of conscience for their stolen meeting.  No feminine terror, no fluttering fear, disturbed her equanimity.  It almost seemed to her as if Bertram’s kiss had released her by magic, at once and for ever, from the taboos of her nation.  She had slipped out from home unperceived, that night, in fear and trembling, with many sinkings of heart and dire misgivings, while Robert and Phil were downstairs in the smoking-room; she had slunk round, crouching low, to Miss Blake’s lodgings:  and she had terrified her soul on the way with a good woman’s doubts and a good woman’s fears as to the wrongfulness of her attempt to say good-bye to the friend she might now no longer mix with.  But from the moment her lips and Bertram’s touched, all fear and doubt seemed utterly to have vanished; she lay there all night in a fierce ecstasy of love, hugging herself for strange delight, thinking only of Bertram, and wondering what manner of thing was this promised freedom whereof her lover had spoken to her so confidently.  She trusted him now; she knew he would do right, and right alone:  whatever he advised, she would be safe in following.