Their front-garden slept. He unlocked the door, and, saying that she was very tired, Cynthia held up her face immediately and went upstairs. After he had extinguished the gas, Kent mounted to the little room where he worked, and lit the lamp. Beyond the window, over the bare trees, the moon was shining whitely. He stood for a few moments staring out, and thinking he scarcely knew of what; then he began to re-read the last page of the manuscript that lay on the desk. He had just begun to write, when Cynthia stole in and joined him. "Are you busy?" she asked. "No, dearest," he said,'surprised. "What is it?" She came forward, and hung beside him, fingering the pen that he had laid down. She had put on her dressing-gown, and her hair was loose. She was very lovely, very youthful so; she looked like a child playing at being a woman. The sleeves fell away, giving a glimpse of the delicate forearms, and he thought the softness of the neck she displayed seemed made for a parent's kisses. "How cold it is!" she murmured; "don't you feel cold?" "You shouldn't have come in," he said; "you'll take a chill. You'd be better off in bed, Baby." She shook her head. "I want to stop." "Then, let me get you a rug and wrap you up." He rose, but she stayed him petulantly. "I don't want you to go away; I want to speak to you.... Humphrey----" "Is anything the matter?" "I've something to tell you." She pricked the paper nervously with the nib. "Something ... can't you guess what it is, Humphrey? Think--it's about _me_." A tear splashed on to the paper between them. Kent's heart gave one loud throb of comprehension and then yearned over her with the truest emotion that she had wakened in him yet. He caught her close and caressed her, while she clung to him sobbing spasmodically. "Oh, you do love me? You do love me, don't you?" she gasped. "I'm not a disappointment, _am_ I?" She slipped on to the hassock at his feet, resting her head on his leg. With the tumbled fairness of her hair across his trouser as she crouched there, she looked more like a child than ever, a penitent child begging forgiveness for some fault. He swore that she had fulfilled and exceeded his most ardent dreams, that she was sweeter in reality than his imagination had promised him; and he pitied her vehemently and remorsefully as he spoke, because in such a moment she was answered by a lie. The lamp, which the servant had neglected, flickered and expired, and on a sudden the room, and the two bent figures before the desk were lit only by the pallor of the moon. Cynthia turned, and looked up in his face deprecatingly: "Oh, I'm so sorry; I meant to remind her. I'm punished--I'm left in the dark myself!"