“I wush it was me!” she said, pushing Winsome from the room.

The day was breaking red in the east when Winsome stepped out upon the little wooden stoop, damp with the night mist, which seemed somehow strange to her feet.  She stepped down, giving a little familiar pat to the bosom of her dress, as though to advertise to any one who might be observing that it was her constant habit thus to walk abroad in the dawn.

Meg watched her as she went.  Then she turned into the house to stop the kitchen clock and out to lock the stable door.

Through the trees Winsome saw Ralph long before he saw her.  She was a woman; he was only a naturalist and a man.  She drew the sunbonnet a little farther over her eyes.  He started at last, turned, and came eagerly towards her.

Jock Gordon, who had remained about the farm, went quickly to the gate at the end of the house as if to shut it.

“Come back oot o’ that,” said Meg sharply.

Jock turned quite as briskly.

“I was gaun to stand wi’ my back til’t, sae that they micht ken there was naebody luikin’.  D’ye think Jock Gordon haes nae mainners?” he said indignantly.

“Staun wi’ yer back to a creel o’ peats, Jock; it’ll fit ye better!” ooserved Meg, giving him the wicker basket with the broad leather strap which was used at Craig Ronald for bringing the peats in from the stack.

Winsome had not meant to look at Ralph as she came up to him.  It seemed a bold and impossible thing for her ever again to come to him.  The fear of a former time was still strong upon her.

But as soon as she saw him, her eyes somehow could not leave his face.  He dropped his hat on the grass beneath, as he came forward to meet her under the great branches of the oak-trees by the little pond.  She had meant to tell him that he must not touch her —­she was not to be touched; yet she went straight into his open arms like a homing dove.  Her great eyes, still dewy with the warm light of love in them, never left his till, holding his love safe in his arms, he drew her to him and upon her sweet lips took his first kiss of love.

“At last!” he said, after a silence.

The sun was rising over the hills of heather.  League after league of the imperial colour rolled westward as the level rays of the sun touched it.

“Now do you understand, my beloved?” said Ralph.  Perhaps it was the red light of the sun, or only some roseate tinge from the miles of Galloway heather that stretched to the north, but it is certain that there was a glow of more than earthly beauty on Winsome’s face as she stood up, still within his arms, and said: 

“I do not understand at all, but I love you.”

Then, because there is nothing more true and trustful than the heart of a good woman, or more surely an inheritance from the maid-mother of the sinless garden than her way of showing that she gives her all, Winsome laid her either hand on her lover’s shoulders and drew his face down to hers—­laying her lips to his of her own free will and accord, without shame in giving, or coquetry of refusal, in that full kiss of first surrender which a woman may give once, but never twice, in her life.