At the thought her heart suffocated her.  She stood dazedly looking out of the old kitchen window, and her senses swam in a sudden spasm of pain.

And Alix?  Well, Alix might have been Mrs. Lloyd.  Martin had told her more than once that he had “a crush on Alix, right off the bat!” And Alix had liked him, too—­any girl would like any man under the same circumstances of age and environment.  Alix would have made Martin a better wife; she would have loved the mining towns, the muddy railroad stations, and the odd women.  She would have had her dogs, perhaps a child or two now.  Anyway, ran Cherry’s thoughts, she would have had the old home now, and that, to Alix, would have meant a very triumph of joy.  She would have come to stay with Peter and Cherry while it was put in order; she would have revelled in cows and ducks and dogs here.

“Cherry, child, come and lend us a hand!” Peter said.  They were trying to push aside the ice-box that blocked the unlocked kitchen door.  Cherry went to them at once; the little word “child” danced in her heart all day, and warmed it when she was lying wakeful and restless deep into the summer night.

CHAPTER XVI

“You and I must go away!” said Peter.  “I can’t stand it.  I love you.  I love you so dearly, Cherry.  I can’t think of anything else any more.  It’s like a fever—­it’s like a sickness.  I’m never happy, any more, unless my arms are about you.  Will you let me take you somewhere, where we can be happy together?”

Cherry turned her confident, childish face toward him; her lashes glittered, but she smiled.

“I love you, Peter!” she said.  And the words, sounding softly through the silence of the garden, died away on the warm night air like music.

It was night, the third night of the harvest moon.  Through the branches of the oak tree under which they were sitting blots of silver were falling; between them the shadows were inky black.  The grass was a sheen of pearly light, the little cabin was like an enchanted dwelling, wreathed with flowers, and steeped in moonshine.  Toward the ocean, over the moon-flooded ridge, a great fold of creamy fog was silently pushing, and Cherry had a scarf of creamy lace caught about her shoulders.  Her coil of corn-coloured hair was loosened; she and Peter had been moving geranium slips all afternoon, and at supper-time, when a telephone message from Alix had advised them that she was obliged to stay in town to dine with an exacting old family friend, they had parted only to bathe and change, before sitting down for dinner in the sunset beauty of the porch.