A delicious morning had followed the lovely night.  The stream flowed under Evan’s eyes, like something in a lower sphere, now.  His passion took him up, as if a genie had lifted him into mid-air, and showed him the world on a palm of a hand; and yet, as he dressed by the window, little chinks in the garden wall, and nectarines under their shiny leaves, and the white walks of the garden, were stamped on his hot brain accurately and lastingly.  Ruth upon the lips of Rose:  that voice of living constancy made music to him everywhere.  ’Thy God shall be my God.’  He had heard it all through the night.  He had not yet broken the tender charm sufficiently to think that he must tell her the sacrifice she would have to make.  When partly he did, the first excuse he clutched at was, that he had not even kissed her on the forehead.  Surely he had been splendidly chivalrous?  Just as surely he would have brought on himself the scorn of the chivalrous or of the commonly balanced if he had been otherwise.  The grandeur of this or of any of his proceedings, then, was forfeited, as it must needs be when we are in the false position:  we can have no glory though martyred.  The youth felt it, even to the seeing of why it was; and he resolved, in justice to the dear girl, that he would break loose from his fetters, as we call our weakness.  Behold, Rose met him descending the stairs, and, taking his hand, sang, unabashed, by the tell-tale colour coming over her face, a stave of a little Portuguese air that they had both been fond of in Portugal; and he, listening to it, and looking in her eyes, saw that his feelings in—­ the old time had been hers.  Instantly the old time gave him its breath, the present drew back.

Rose, now that she had given her heart out, had no idea of concealment.  She would have denied nothing to her aunts:  she was ready to confide it to her mother.  Was she not proud of the man she loved?  When Evan’s hand touched hers she retained it, and smiled up at him frankly, as it were to make him glad in her gladness.  If before others his eyes brought the blood to her cheeks, she would perhaps drop her eye-lids an instant, and then glance quickly level again to reassure him.  And who would have thought that this boisterous, boyish creature had such depths of eye!  Cold, did they call her?  Let others think her cold.  The tender knowledge of her—­the throbbing secret they held in common sang at his heart.  Rose made no confidante, but she attempted no mystery.  Evan should have risen to the height of the noble girl.  But the dearer and sweeter her bearing became, the more conscious he was of the dead weight he was dragging:  in truth her behaviour stamped his false position to hard print the more he admired her for it, and he had shrinkings from the feminine part it imposed on him to play.

CHAPTER XXV

IN WHICH THE STREAM FLOWS MUDDY AND CLEAR