“To the right when you reach the river, please,” she directed.  “You will find there is scarcely any current.  We turn up the next stream.”

There was something almost mysterious, a little impressive, about the broad expanse of river into which they presently turned.  Opposite were woods and then a sloping lawn.  From a house hidden in the distance they heard the sound of a woman singing.  They even caught the murmurs of applause as she concluded.  Then there was silence, only the soft gurgling of the water cloven by the punt pole.  They glided past the front of the great unlit house, past another strip of woodland, and then up a narrow stream.

“To the left here,” she directed, “and then stop.”

They bumped against the bank.  The little backwater into which they had turned seemed to terminate in a bed of lilies whose faint fragrance almost enveloped them.  The trees on either side made a little arch of darkness.

“Please ship your pole and listen,” Margaret said dreamily.  “Make yourself as comfortable as you can.  There are plenty of cushions behind you.  This is where I come for silence.”

Francis obeyed her orders without remark.  For a few moments, speech seemed impossible.  The darkness was so intense that although he was acutely conscious of her presence there, only a few feet away, nothing but the barest outline of her form was visible.  The silence which she had brought him to seek was all around them.  There was just the faintest splash of water from the spot where the stream and the river met, the distant barking of a dog, the occasional croaking of a frog from somewhere in the midst of the bed of lilies.  Otherwise the silence and the darkness were like a shroud.  Francis leaned forward in his place.  His hands, which gripped the sides of the punt, were hot.  The serenity of the night mocked him.

“So this is your paradise,” he said, a little hoarsely.

She made no answer.  Her silence seemed to him more thrilling than words.  He leaned forward.  His hands fell upon the soft fur which encompassed her.  They rested there.  Still she did not speak.  He tightened his grasp, moved further forward, the passion surging through his veins, his breath almost failing him.  He was so near now that he heard her breathing, saw her face, as pale as ever.  Her lips were a little parted, her eyes looked out, as it seemed to him, half in fear, half in hope.  He bent lower still.  She neither shrank away nor invited him.

“Dear!” he whispered.

Her arms stole from underneath the cloak, her fingers rested upon his shoulders.  He scarcely knew whether it was a caress or whether she were holding him from her.  In any case it was too late.  With a little sob of passion his lips were pressed to hers.  Even as she closed her eyes, the scent of the lilies seemed to intoxicate him.