“Darling, I want to make it all up to you. I want to give you everything.” “And I--I can give you nothing.” She closed her eyes tiredly. “I’m so young--so young. I don’t think I want to be married. So much may happen. If we married, everything would be ended; there’d be nothing to dream about. We’d know everything.” Her face moved against his caressingly. “But it is so sweet to be loved.” He laughed softly. “You will marry me, Princess. You will. One day you’ll want to know everything. I’ll wait till you’re ready.” She let him draw her to him. Her eyelids drooped. She lay in his arms pulseless. The silkiness of her hair trembled against his forehead. “Give me your lips.” His voice was thirsty. She did not stir. “Just this once.” She rested her hands on his shoulders. The moist sweet mouth shuddered as he pressed it. He clung to it; an eternity was in the moment. He was drinking her soul from the chalice of her body. Gently she pushed him from her. It was over--this ecstasy to which all his life had been a preface. She crumpled forward, her knees drawn up, burying her face in her hands. He was dizzy. The world swung under him. “I’m not crying,” she panted brokenly. “I’m not glad, and I’m not sorry. No one ever kissed me like that.--Oh, please don’t touch me. I ought to send you away forever.” He knelt beside her, conscience-stricken. It was as if he had done her a great wrong. Passion was tossed aside by compassion. As he knelt, he kissed timidly the quivering hands which hid her eyes from him. “Forgive me, my darling. You couldn’t send me away. I shall never leave you.” “Poor you! There’s nothing to forgive.” It was a little child talking. Making bars of her fingers, she peered out at him. “If I let you stay, will you promise not to blame me--never to think I’ve led you on when--when I don’t marry you?” “I won’t blame you,” his voice was strained and husky, “but I’ll wait for you forever.” “Will you? All men say that.” She shook her head wisely. “I wonder?” She tidied her hair. It gave him a thrilling sense of possession to be allowed to watch her. When he had helped her to rise, he stooped to brush the snow from her. Suddenly he fell to his knees in a wild abandon of longing, and reverently kissed the hem of her gown. “Meester Deek, don’t. To see you do that--it hurts.” They walked through the wood in silence, retracing their old footsteps. At the point where it was lost to sight, they gazed back, hand-in-hand, to the sacred spot where all had happened. The snow would melt; they might come in search of the place one day--they might not find it. Would they come alone or together? Their hands gripped more closely; the present at least was theirs. The storm of emotion which had rocked them, had left them exhausted. They had said so much without words; the eloquence of language seemed inadequate. Each thought as it rose to their lips seemed too trifling for utterance.