"You see," she said with a wistful smile, "_this_ is not Shiela Cardross who sits here smiling into those brown eyes of yours. I think I died before you ever saw me; and out of the sea and the mist that day some changeling crept into your boat for your soul's undoing. Do you remember in Ingoldsby--'The cidevant daughter of the old Plantagenet line '?" They laughed like children. "Do you think our love-tempted souls are in any peril?" he asked lightly. The question arrested her mirth so suddenly that he thought she must have misunderstood. "What is it, Shiela?" he inquired, surprised. "Garry--will you tell me something--if you can?... Then, what does it mean, the saying--'souls lost through love'? Does it mean what we have done?--because I am married? Would people think our souls lost--if they knew?" "No, you blessed child!" "Well, how can--" "It's a lie anyway," he said. "Nothing is lost through love. It is something very different they mean." "Yes," she said calmly, "something quite inconceivable, like 'Faust' and 'The Scarlet Letter,' ... I _thought_ that was what they meant!" Brooding over him, silent, pensive, clear eyes fearlessly meeting his, she drifted into guiltless retrospection. "After all," she said, "except for letting everybody know that we belong to each other this is practically like marriage. Look at that honeymoon up there, Garry.... If, somehow, they could think we are engaged, and would let us alone for the rest of our lives, it would not matter.... Except I should like to have a house alone with you." And she stooped, resting her cheek lightly against his, eyes vaguely sweet in the moonlight. "I love you so," she murmured, as though to herself, "and there seems no end to it. It is such a hopeless sequence when yesterday's love becomes to-day's adoration and to-morrow's worship. What am I to do? What is the use of saying I am not free to love you, when I do?" She smiled dreamily. "I was silly enough to think it impossible once. Do you remember?" "You darling!" he whispered, adoring her innocence. Then as he lay, head cradled on her knees, looking up at her, all unbidden, a vision of the future in its sharp-cut ominous desolation flashed into his vision--the world without her!--the endless stretch of time--youth with no meaning, effort wasted, attainment without desire, loneliness, arid, terrible days unending. "It is too--too senseless!" he breathed, stumbling to his feet as the vague, scarcely formulated horror of it suddenly turned keen and bit into him as he began to realise for the first time something of what it threatened. "What is it, Garry?" she asked in gentle concern, as he stood looking darkly at her. "Is it time to go? You are tired, I know." She rose and opened the great glass doors. "You poor tired boy," she whispered, waiting for him. And as he did not stir: "What is the matter, Garry?" "Nothing. I am trying to understand that our winter is ended."