The next night Rose went early to her own room, and when she heard Peter and MacLeod on the veranda, their voices continuing in a steady interchange, she took her cloak, locked the chamber door behind her, and ran downstairs and out by the long window to the garden, the orchard, and the field. The night was dark and hot, and over in the south played fitful lightnings. In spite of the heat, she wrapped her cloak about her for an invisible shield: for now that MacLeod had come, she felt strangely insecure, as if eyes were everywhere. It was apparent to her that these meetings might be few, and as if this even might be the last; so it must not be interrupted. When she was once in the field, the hush of the night, the heat, and her own uneasy thoughts bewildered her. She stopped in doubt. His voice assured her. "This way, playmate." "I am coming," she found herself answering, not once but twice, and then, as she reached the seat he had ready for her, it came upon her overwhelmingly that such gladness was of the scope and tumult to bear two creatures to each other's arms, to mingle there, face to face and breast to breast. But the quick thought neither threw her back in shame upon herself nor forward to his side. The night and the things of life together were too great to admit of fine timidities or crude betrayals. It was not of so much avail to consider what was done as whether the deed was true. She sat down, in deep relief at finding herself near him. "Playmate," she said, "things are very bad indeed." "Are they, my dear playmate?" Her breath came in a sob, his voice sounded so kind, so altogether merciful of her, whatever she might do. "Dreadful things are happening," she said. "The prince?" "Not the prince, this time. Worse things." "Tell me, child." She had ceased to be altogether his playmate. Deeper needs had called out keener sympathies, and she found some comfort even in his altered tone. She waited for a time, listening to the summer sounds, and vainly wishing she had been a more fortunate woman, and that these sad steps need not be retraced in retrospect before life could go on again. "You will have to listen to a long story," she said at last. "And how am I to tell you! Ask me questions." "How far shall I go back?" "To the beginning--to the beginning of my growing up. Before I met Tom Fulton." "When you meant to sing?" "I did sing. But you mustn't think that was what I wanted. I never wanted anything but love." "Go on." To him, who, in his solitude, had never expected to find close companionship, it was inconceivable that they should be there speaking the unconsidered truth. She, too, who, in the world, had tasted the likeness of happy intercourse, only to despair of it, had found a goal. Here now was the real to which all the old promises had been leading. "You must understand me," she said, in a low voice. "I'm going to tell you the plain truth. How awful if you didn't understand!" "I shall understand. Go on."