After tea there was the garden till dressing time. Everybody was in the garden, so it was only natural that these two should be sauntering in lanes of roses, exchanging light talk with other saunterers, and lingering a little at the crossing of the ways, where the slow drip of a fountain made a coolness in the sultry evening, or stopping at an opening in the flowery rampart, to look across the blue water towards the grey old tower, and listen to the pensive music of church bells. These two had been alone all day, without interference or espial from chaperon Aunt, unconscious of observation, if they were observed, alone in this little world of summer verdure and sunlit water; as much alone as in a pathless wilderness. All that long summer day they had been alone, talking, talking, talking, as only lovers talk; and now, at midnight, they were still alone in the garden that was changed in the moonlight, changed from the warm glow of colour to the silvery paleness and mysterious shadow, in which the prolific clusters of the Félicité pérpétuelle looked like the ghosts of roses. If it were sin to love, the sin had been sinned; from the hour in which he had drawn the confession of her love from the lips that he kissed for the first time. She had tried to hold him off--tried to keep those lips unprofaned by the kiss of guilt. They were alone in the wood on the hill that fatal Sunday afternoon, safe only for the moment, since the woodland path was a favourite walk with visitors at River Mead. But he had drawn her from the footpath into the shade of great beech trees, and they were alone. He had kissed her, and she had submitted to the guilty kiss, and she knew that she was lost. Did she love him? She whispered yes. With all her heart and soul? Yes. Could she be happy if he left her for ever? No, no, no. Could she give up all the world for him, as he would for her? The lips that he had kissed were too tremulous for speech. She hid her face upon his breast, and was dumb. "The die is cast," he said in a low, grave voice, "and now we have only to think of our future." "Our future?" Henceforth they were one; united by a bond as strong as if they had been married before the high altar in Westminster Abbey, with all the best people in London looking on and approving the bond. Nothing else could matter now. They belonged to each other. He was to command, and she was to obey. It was almost as if, in the moment of her confession, her personal entity had ceased. In all those hours of delicious intimacy, in fond imaginings of their future life, the thought of her husband had never come between her and her lover--and to-night, when she thought of Mario Provana, it was only to tell herself that he had long ceased to care for her, and that it would not hurt him if she were to vanish out of his life.