“But why not go by sea?” he mused, “why not to Japan and through India, and so on to France?”

“No!” she said quickly.  “On a long sea-trip someone would surely know us—­isn’t there some way we can get away, disappear as if we had never been?”

“Cherry!” he said, kneeling before her in the wet grass.  “You know what it means!”

“It means you!” she answered, after a silence.  She had laid her hands softly about his neck, and her shining eyes were close to his.

“And you trust me?” he whispered.  “You know that when I am free and you are free—­”

She put her fingers over his mouth.

“Peter!  Haven’t I known you ever since I was little enough to sit in your lap and have you read ‘Lady Jane’ to me?  It’s so beautiful—­it’s so wonderful—­to love this way,” she said, in her innocent, little-girl voice, “that it seems to me the only thing in the world!  I’d come to you, Peter, if it meant shame and death and horror.  It doesn’t mean that, it only means a man and a woman settling down somewhere in the south of France, a big quiet man who limps a little, and a little yellow-headed woman in blue smocks and silly-looking hats—­”

“It means life, of course!” he interrupted her.  “The hour that makes you mine, Cherry, will be the exquisite hour of my whole life!”

They were silent for a while, and below them the white moonlight deepened and brightened and swam like an enchantment.

“If you will face it,” Peter said, presently, “I will give every instant of my life to you!”

“I know you will,” she said, dreamily.

“There will be no coming back, Cherry.”

“Oh, I know that!”

“There can’t ever be—­there mustn’t be—­you’ve thought of that?” he said, uncertainly.  In the curious, unreal light that flooded the world, he saw her turn, and caught the gleam of her surprised eyes.

“You mean children—­a child?” she said, surprisedly.  “Why not, Peter?” she added, tightening her fingers, “what could be more wonderful than that we should have a child?  Can you imagine a happier environment for a child than that little sunshiny, woodsy beach cottage; can’t you see the little figure—­the two or three little figures!—­scampering ahead of us through the country roads, or around the fire?  Oh, I can,” said Cherry, her extraordinary voice rich and sweet with longing, “I can!  That would be motherhood, Peter, that wouldn’t be like having a baby whose father one didn’t—­one couldn’t love, marriage or no marriage!”

And as he watched, amazed at the change that love had brought to quiet, little inarticulate Cherry, she added, earnestly: 

“I’ve been thinking how bitter it was, Peter, to have the greatest thing in life come to us this way, but just lately—­just this last hour it’s come to me that it is right—­it’s best!—­to have it so.  We give all the world up, and we get only each other, and yet how little it seems to give, and how much to get!  Why, every hour of it, every minute will hold more joy than we’ve ever known!  I couldn’t,” she said, suddenly grave, “I couldn’t take you from any one who loved you as I do; I couldn’t hurt any one, to be happy.  But Alix will forgive us; you’ll see she will!”