It was your kiss that opened my heart to me and showed me--." He bent over her until his lips nearly touched hers.

"Kiss me in return--of your own accord, Ida! But once, if you will; but kiss me!" Without a blush, solemnly as if it were a sacrament, she raised her head and kissed him on the lips.
There fell a silence.

The world around them, in the soft shimmer of the crescent moon, became an enchanted region, the land that never was on earth or sea, the land of love, in which all that dwell therein move in the glamour of the sacred Fire of Love.
Stafford broke it at last.

It is the man who cannot be contented with silence; he thirsts for his mistress's voice.
"Dearest, what shall I do?
You must tell me," he said, as if he had been thinking.

"I will do whatever you wish, whatever you think best.
I've a strong suspicion that you're the cleverest of us; that you've got more brains in this sweet little finger of yours than I've got in my clumsy head--" She laughed softly and looked at the head which he had libelled, the shapely head with its close-cut hair, which, sliding her hand up, she touched caressingly.
"Shall I come to your father to-morrow, Ida?
I will ride over after breakfast--before, if you like: if I had my way I'd patrol up and down here all night until it was a decent time to call upon him." She nestled a little closer to him, and her brows came level with sudden gravity and doubt.
"My father! I had not thought of him--of what he would say--do.