"Their secret having been found out, Dove, it remains to award them their punishment. In my royal clemency, however, I leave the sentence in your hands." "What have they been doing, papa?" "Ask them. Call upon the female prisoner to stand forward and say why sentence should not be pronounced against her." "It is not a subject for merriment, Hubert," said his wife, blushing hotly, "and if I did ask Mr. Bexley to speak to you as a friend——" "You hear, Dove, she confesses to the conspiracy, and also criminates her fellow-prisoner. If I had a black cowl, and some sherry at 12s. a dozen, I should sentence them to drink half a bottle each, having first bade them a final and affectionate farewell." "As it is, papa," said Dove, maliciously, "you had better give them some of that white Italian wine you are so fond of, and if they survive——" "Mamma, order this girl to bed." "That is what poor papa says whenever any one beats him in an argument, or says his wine isn’t good," said Dove to Mr. Bexley. But she went, nevertheless. For it was nearly ten o’clock, and although there was only a faint sickle of the moon now visible, that was still big enough to bear the thin thread of thought which so subtly connected her and her lover. She took out of her bosom a letter which she had received that morning, and she kissed it and held it in her hand, and said, looking up to the pale starlight and the clear white crescent— "Moon, moon, will you tell him that I’ve got his letter, and that I’ve read it twenty times—a hundred times over, and yet he doesn’t say a word about coming home? Will you ask him when he is coming back to me—and tell him to come quick, quick, for the days are getting wearier and wearier? Couldn’t you come down for a little minute, and whisper to me, and tell me what he has been doing all this time, and what he is looking like, and what he is saying to you just now? Couldn’t you give me a little glimpse of him, instead of keeping him to yourself, and staring down as if you didn’t see anything at all? And you might as well tell him that I shall begin and hate Miss Brunel if he doesn’t come back soon—and I’ll play the ’Coulin’ all day to myself when I’m alone, and be as miserable and wretched as ever I please. But here is a kiss for him anyway: and you wouldn’t be so cruel as not to give him that!" And Dove, having completed her orisons, went downstairs, with a smile on her sweet face—perhaps not thinking that the nightly staring at the moon, as the reader may perhaps suspect, had somewhat affected her brain. And she found Mr. Bexley more brilliant and eloquent than ever in his exposition of certain spiritual experiences; and she was in such a mood of half-hysteric delight and happiness that she could have put her arm round Mr. Anerley’s neck, and begged him, for her sake, to be a little, just a little, more orthodox. As it was, he had promised to go inside the church next Sunday; and his wife was very happy.