She was changed, too; there was a matronly grace and maturity in the roundness of her shapely figure and in the reposeful softness of her face, that had been wanting in the beauty, fresh and delicate as he remembered it, of her earlier girlish years. But the only change they recognised in one another was their deeper capacity for understanding the worth and the meaning of such an experience as this, when, with his back against the closed door, and her hands about his neck, he held her in both arms clasped close to his breast, and they drank together in one moment of speechless passion the solace and the sweetness of all the kisses that they _should_ have had. * * * * * In the evening Lucilla sat down to the piano, to play some of Beethoven's sonatas to her husband. It was a lovely moonshiny summer night, and some of the windows stood open, letting in the fragrance of jessamine and tobacco, and a quantity of tiny moths and gnats. Mr. Thornley, having taken his coffee and his cigarette upon the verandah, lying all along on a bamboo easy chair, stayed there to listen and doze in obscurity, with his handkerchief thrown over his bald head to keep off the mosquitoes. For a few minutes Mr. Dalrymple stood behind his hostess; but, finding that she played from memory, and therefore did not want leaves turned over for her, he left the piano, and crossing the room, stooped down to Rachel as she sat in a low chair dreamily fanning herself. "Rachel," he whispered, "is the lapageria in blossom now?" "I don't know, Roden--I don't think so," she replied. "Shall we go and see?" She rose at once, and they went together into the curtained alcove and through the noiseless swing door. "Where is our seat?" he said, taking her hand as soon as they were alone, and leading her down the dim alleys, over-arched with fern trees, and filled with broken shadows of the gigantic fronds. "I hope it is in the same place." It was in the same place, but the place was stiller and darker than it used to be--built all round and about with gnarled masses of cork, feathered in every crevice with maiden hair, and roofed with drooping leaves. There was just moonlight enough to enable them to find it, and when they found it they sat down side by side, and Rachel laid her head on one of her lover's broad shoulders and her hand on the other; and they remained there for several minutes without moving or speaking, listening to the far-off sound of the piano, more perfectly at rest than either of them had ever imagined it possible to be in this world. Mr. Dalrymple spoke first, drawing a long breath. "_Must_ we be separated any more, Rachel? Can't we be married now--this week--to-morrow--and go away from everybody quietly? It seems like tempting Providence to lose sight of one another again--to lose one hour more than we can help of what we have been kept out of all this time."