“Go on a moment.  I must take a last look of where I have been so happy,” said Mavis.

“Alone?”

“If you don’t mind.  I want to see what it’s like without you.  I want to carry it in my mind all my life.”

It was not long before Mavis rejoined her lover.  When she had looked at the spot where she had enjoyed a day of unalloyed rapture, it appeared strangely desolate in the gathering gloom of night.

“Serve you right for wishing to be without me,” he laughed, when she told him how the place had presented itself to her.

“You’re quite right.  It does,” she assented.

They had some difficulty in finding foothold on the covered way, but Perigal, by lighting matches, did much to dissipate the gloom.

“Isn’t it too bad of me?” asked Mavis suddenly, “I’ve forgotten all about dear Jill.”

“But you were talking about her a lot yesterday.”

“I mean to-day.  She’d never forgive me if she knew.”

“You must explain how happy you’ve been when you see her.”

When they got out by the churchyard, they found that the night was spread with innumerable stars.  She nestled close to his side as they walked in the direction of Polperro.  Now and again, a thick growth of hedge flowers would fill their pathway with scent, when Mavis would stop to drink her fill of the fragrance.

“Isn’t it delicious?” she asked.

“It knew you were coming and has done its best to greet you.”

“It’s all too wonderful,” she murmured.

“Like your good-night kisses,” he whispered.

A love tremor possessed her body.

“Say I love you,” she said at another of their frequent halts.

“I love you!  I love you!  I love you!”

“I love music.  But there’s no music like that.”

He placed his arm caressingly about her soft, warm body.

“Don’t!” she pleaded.

“Don’t!” he queried in surprise.

“It makes me love you so.”

She spoke truly:  from her lips to her pretty toes her body was burning with love.  Her ecstasy was such that one moment she felt as if she could wing a flight into the heavens; at another, she was faint with love-sickness, when she clung tremulously to her lover for support.

Above, the stars shone out with a yet greater brilliance and in immense profusion.  Now and again, a shooting star would dart swiftly down to go out suddenly.  The multitude of many coloured stars dazzled her brain.  It seemed to her love-intoxicated imagination as if night embraced the earth, even as Perigal held her body to his, and that the stars were an illumination and were twinkling so happily in honour of the double union.  For all the splendid egotism born of human passion, the immense intercourse of night and earth seemed to reduce her to insignificance.  She crept closer to Perigal’s side, as if he could give her the protection she needed.  He too, perhaps, was touched with the same lowliness, and the same hunger for the support of loving sympathy.  His hand sought hers; and with a great wonder, a great love and a great humility in their hearts, they walked home.