It was two days before he could go to Cape Jessamine. The evening of the truce he went, through the great fresh coolness after the storm. There was yet in the sky a dark blur of cloud with a sweep below it of ragged, crêpe-like filaments, but the lightning and thunder had ceased and the rain was over. Moist fragrance rose from the desolated garden. After all the heat and turmoil there was a silence that seemed divine. Just by the mouth of the cave, half buried in the trailing ivy, Désirée had placed a bench. Here, the first rapture of meeting over, they sat in the evening light, the storm rolling away, an odour coming to them of mignonette. He gathered her hands in his. “Désirée Gaillard, this is no place for you! They are driving an approach to the redan and are massing guns against it. The shells will fall in this garden. Go back to the town!” “No; I will not. I like this better.” “The point is that you may be killed.” “No, I will not be. The shells fall, too, in the town. I will be careful.” “Dear heart, I mean it.” “Dear heart, I mean it, too. The danger is not greater than it is in town. Yesterday there a child’s arm was torn away.” “Oh—” “Yes.... It is so frightful. And they are burying the dead out there. A soldier told me.” “Yes.... How still it seems! And the mignonette ...” “It is as still as was the garden at Cape Jessamine. Look how the clouds are drifting by....” “Desiree, I brought you into the country of Danger. If you had gone to the Fusilier place—” “I should be dead by now. The country of Danger is a happy country to-night. I fear it no more than you. Indeed, I love it—since you are here. We are not children travelling, you and I. Look at the light trembling up from the west!” “That night upon the levee.... You were the heart of the red light. Now you sit here, heart of the gold light.... I love you.” “I love you.” The clouds drifted away, the sun went down clear. The evening star was shining like a silver lamp when the two unlocked their arms, kissed, and rose. All the ruined garden was filled with fireflies, and there stole upward the odour of the mignonette. She went with him to the fallen old brick gateposts. There they embraced and parted. Going down toward the trenches he looked back and saw her standing, the fireflies about her like stars, behind her tall shadowy trees, and, like a hieroglyphic against the sky, the charred rafters of the ruined house.