She did not try to answer him. His kisses stayed all speech. His arms encompassed her—lifted her. He sat down on the little horse-hair sofa in the growing darkness, holding her. And she clung to him—clung to him—in the abandonment of love’s first surrender. CHAPTER VII ROGER It was like a dream—yet not a dream. Over and over again she marvelled afresh at the wonder of it, lying on the hard little bed in her room with the sloping roof, watching the misty stars through their long night march. They had parted—somehow he had torn himself away, she could not remember how. She only remembered that after he had gone, he had returned to the window and said to her laughing, “Why not come up on to the moor and do sacrifice to the high gods with me?” And she had answered, also laughing—tremulously, “Oh no, really I couldn’t bear any more to-night. Besides, it is misty—we might be lost.” “I should like to be lost with you,” he had answered, and had gone away laughing. There had been something wild and Pan-like in his laugh. It was the laugh of the conqueror, and she tingled to the memory of it, thrilling like a delicate instrument to the hand of a skilled player. He had waked in her such music as none had ever waked in her before. She did not know herself any longer. This throbbing, eager creature was a being wholly different from the Frances Thorold of her knowledge, just as the man who had laughed and vanished like Pan into the mist had a personality wholly apart from that somewhat cynical but kindly gentleman who was Montague Rotherby. What magic had wrought the change in them? What moorland spell was this, holding them as surely as a net about their feet? She was as one on the threshold of an enchanted world, afraid not so much of the unknown that lay before her as of the desert that lay behind—that desert which she had so miraculously quitted for this place of amazing gladness. Once in the night she arose and went to the little cottage-window since sleep was impossible. It came to her there as she stood gazing up at those far dim stars to breathe a deep thanksgiving for this strange deliverance. But the words she sought to utter would not come. The vague mist, floating like smoke, seemed to cling about her soul. She stood speechless, and so standing she heard a voice, denunciatory, fanatical, speak suddenly within. “I tell you to go, because I cannot stop your sinning until you have endured your hell and—if God is merciful—begun to work out your own salvation.” So clearly fell the words upon her consciousness that she felt as if they had been uttered by her side. She almost turned to see who spoke. Then, remembering, a sharp shudder went through her. She shrank and caught her breath as though she had been pierced.