Night came, and darkness voyaged the uncharted sky. Overhead the blue dome blazed with the innumerable stars and golden planets heaving up heaven’s arch; the tremulous green lamps of the fireflies filled the earth with twinkling constellations all around them. But the heavens and the earth were as nothing to them: love was there, and he, and she, and the utterly forgotten starlight. And where youth and love are, life, death, good or ill, the bright stars or the black mould, or better or worse, are nothing, and wisdom is of little worth. They gazed into each other’s eyes with wordless tenderness. Youth has not words, nor waits to find them; age finds words, and nothing else. Across the city boomed the hour,--at last. “Oh! I must go!” “Not yet! Not yet!” “But I must go. Good-night!” “Not yet!” “But I must go! Good-night! Good-night! I pray you, leave me go ... for truly I must go!” “You’ll come again?” “To-morrow.” “Show me the way into the garden,” he said. She showed him the quickest way in, kissed him, and was gone through the garden; for him the night was darkened, and the stars put out. Her breath was still upon his face, the smell of the flowers in his nostrils; and in his ears was the sound of her voice, calling after him, low and sweet, like a half-awakened song,--or was it but a bird which called, that softly-fluting, lonely note. And when he was gone the garden to Gabrielle was emptied of delight; but all her soul was singing. Her lips stung; her cheeks were on fire. Into the house she came, one little slipper upon its little foot, one slipper gone,--what became of that lost little slipper God knows!--and her stockinged foot was damp with the dew which had dripped from the leaves overhead. A flame was in her eyes which is in a maiden’s eyes but once, when love first lays his hands upon her heart. So transfigured was she, she seemed a winged creature. She loved; she was beloved; inarticulate ecstasy! Hands, feet, neck, and face told but one story. Her eyes shone like blazing stars; the roses had returned to her pale lips, the freshness to her wan cheeks. Margot watched her with narrowed eyes. “Mother, I am happy; so happy that I do not want to die; I want to live forever!” Margot eyed her narrowly. “What has changed your mind?” “I was walking in the garden,” rejoined Gabrielle, “and the god of love was there. He kissed me on my mouth, Mother; and oh, Mother, love is sweet!” Margot’s heart stopped beating. “Are you quite mad?” she said. Then the truth dawned upon her. She lost all sense of balance in the crossed tides of dismay. She strained her daughter to her heart, then thrust her away; dropped speech unuttered; gave a choked cry of despair, while her face went gray as ashes.