She was vividly imagining, for the twentieth time, the kiss of the morning, and putting her lips together in the position another such a one would demand, when she heard the identical operation performed on the lawn, immediately beneath her window.
A kiss--not of the quiet and stealthy kind, but decisive, loud, and smart.
Her face flushed and she looked out, but to no purpose.

The dark rim of the upland drew a keen sad line against the pale glow of the sky, unbroken except where a young cedar on the lawn, that had outgrown its fellow trees, shot its pointed head across the horizon, piercing the firmamental lustre like a sting.
It was just possible that, had any persons been standing on the grassy portions of the lawn, Elfride might have seen their dusky forms.

But the shrubs, which once had merely dotted the glade, had now grown bushy and large, till they hid at least half the enclosure containing them.

The kissing pair might have been behind some of these; at any rate, nobody was in sight.
Had no enigma ever been connected with her lover by his hints and absences, Elfride would never have thought of admitting into her mind a suspicion that he might be concerned in the foregoing enactment.

But the reservations he at present insisted on, while they added to the mystery without which perhaps she would never have seriously loved him at all, were calculated to nourish doubts of all kinds, and with a slow flush of jealousy she asked herself, might he not be the culprit?
Elfride glided downstairs on tiptoe, and out to the precise spot on which she had parted from Stephen to enable him to speak privately to her father.