“France!” she whispered, and the downcast face he was watching so eagerly was thoughtful.  “How could we go,” she breathed.  “You first, and then I?  To meet somewhere?”

“We would have to go together,” he decided, swiftly.  “Everyone must know, dear; you realize that?”

Wide-eyed, she was staring at him as if spellbound by some new hope; now she shrugged her shoulders in careless disdain.

“That isn’t of any consequence!”

“You don’t feel it so!” He sat down beside her, and again they locked hands.

“Not that part,” she answered, simply.  “I mind—­Alix,” she added, thoughtfully.

“Yes, I mind Alix!” he admitted.

“But the injury is done to Alix now,” Cherry said, slowly.  “Now it is too late to go back!  You and I couldn’t—­we couldn’t deceive Alix here, Peter,” Cherry added, and as she turned to him he saw her thin white blouse move suddenly with the quick rising of her heart.  “That—­that would be too horrible!  But I could take this love of ours away, leave everything else behind, simply—­simply recognize,” stammered Cherry, her lips beginning to tremble, “that it is bigger than ourselves, that we can’t help it, Peter.  I’d fight it if I could,” she added, piteously, “I’d go away if I didn’t know that no power on earth could keep me from coming back!”

She buried her head on his shoulder, and he put his arm about her, and there was utter silence over the great brooding mountain, and in the valley brimming with soft moonshine, and in the garden.

“I believe that even Alix will understand,” Peter said after awhile.  “She loves you and me better than any one else in the world; she is not only everything that is generous, but she isn’t selfish, she is the busiest and the most sensible person I ever knew.  I know—­of course I know it’s rotten,” he broke off in sudden despair, “but what I’m trying to say is that Alix, of all people I know, is the one that will make the least fuss about it—­ "

Cherry was staring raptly before her; now she grasped his hand and said breathlessly: 

“Oh, Peter, are we talking about it?  Are we talking about our going away, and belonging to each other?”

“What else?” he said, quick tears in his eyes.

“Oh, but I’ve been so unhappy, I’ve been so starved!” she whispered.  “I thought I wanted people—­cities—­I thought I wanted to go on the stage.  But it was only you that I wanted.  Oh, Peter, what a life it will be!  The littlest cottage, the simplest life, and perhaps a beach or woods to walk in—­and always talking, reading, always together.  I never want to come back; I never want to see any one; I never want anything but that.”

“France it must be, I think,” he said, “for then we can go about—­ no one will know us—–­”

“But we will meet people we know in the trains, going,” Cherry said, suddenly.  “I know what I am doing,” she added, “but that would be so hard, to have them identify us, perhaps come up to us, whisper and point!”