He was back in his place without conscious movement.  His pulses were quivering, the passion singing in his blood, the joy of her faint caress living proudly in his memory.  It had been the moment of his life, and yet even now he felt sick at heart with fears, with the torment of her passiveness.  She had lain there in his arms, he had felt the thrill of her body, some quaint inspiration had told him that she had sought for joy in that moment and had not wholly failed.  Yet his anxiety was tumultuous, overwhelming.  Then she spoke, and his heart leaped again.  Her voice was more natural.  It was not a voice which he had ever heard before.

“Give me a cigarette, please—­and I want to go back.”

He leaned over her again, struck a match with trembling fingers and gave her the cigarette.  She smiled at him very faintly.

“Please go back now,” she begged.  “Smoke yourself, take me home slowly and say nothing.”

He obeyed, but his knees were shaking when he stood up.  Slowly, a foot at a time, they passed from the mesh of the lilies out into the broad stream.  Almost as they did so, the yellow rim of the moon came up over the low hills.  As they turned into their own stream, the light was strong enough for him to see her face.  She lay there like a ghost, her eyes half closed, the only touch of colour in the shining strands of her beautiful hair.  She roused herself a little as they swung around.  He paused, leaning upon the pole.

“You are not angry?” he asked.

“No, I am not angry,” she answered.  “Why should I be?  But I cannot talk to you about it tonight.”

They glided to the edge of the landing-stage.  A servant appeared and secured the punt.

“Is Sir Timothy back yet?” Margaret enquired.

“Not yet, madam.”

She turned to Francis.

“Please go and have a whisky and soda in the smoking-room,” she said, pointing to the open French windows.  “I am going to my favourite seat.  You will find me just across the bridge there.”

He hesitated, filled with a passionate disinclination to leave her side even for a moment.  She seemed to understand but she pointed once more to the room.

“I should like very much,” she added, “to be alone for five minutes.  If you will come and find me then—­please!”

Francis stepped through the French windows into the smoking-room, where all the paraphernalia for satisfying thirst were set out upon the sideboard.  He helped himself to whisky and soda and drank it absently, with his eyes fixed upon the clock.  In five minutes he stepped once more back into the gardens, soft and brilliant now in the moonlight.  As he did so, he heard the click of the gate in the wall, and footsteps.  His host, with Lady Cynthia upon his arm, came into sight and crossed the lawn towards him.  Francis, filled though his mind was with other thoughts, paused for a moment and glanced towards them curiously.  Lady Cynthia seemed for a moment to have lost all her weariness.  Her eyes were very bright, she walked with a new spring in her movements.  Even her voice, as she addressed Francis, seemed altered.