Once again she covered her face with her hand and gave a quick, little sneeze. Then looking full at him, she smiled, though somewhat sadly. "Let it be even as you wish," she said very meekly. "Give me bread." Laurence, mightily rejoicing, cut the loaf, and placed the bread upon her plate. Tremblingly, as though putting a great force upon herself, she broke it into little pieces, carried one to her lips, then laid it back beside the others on her plate; next stretched out her hand for the glass of wine her lover held towards her, but shook her head, and set it down untasted. While he, eager to the point of desperation, yet dreading in any way to affright her and so defeat his own ends, fell to coaxing her once more, with a certain playful seriousness. "See here," he said, "learn by experience. The threshold which you declared impassable was very easily crossed. And this affair of your little supper is exactly parallel. You are the victim of your own imagination. What after all holds you back?" Once more she essayed valiantly to obey him; but once more laid the morsel of bread down on her plate. The thunder rolled from east to west along the northern heights, and the lightning flickered; but both had grown faint and very distant, while a soft, cool air wandered in at the open window, dispelling the clinging and insidious odour of the orchids, purifying the heavy atmosphere of the room, and lightly stirring the little lace frills of Agnes Rivers's muslin cape. "What after all holds you back?" he demanded, with some agitation. For that cool draw of air, though pleasant, affected him unexpectedly. It appeared to blow across the valley from Stoke Rivers churchyard, where, in the spring morning three months before, he had watched the little shadows cast by the feathery branches of the age-old yew-trees dance and beckon among the grass-grown graves. But his fairy-lady pushed her plate aside. All her gentle dignity had returned to her, and a wisdom born of knowledge more profound than that granted to most human creatures sat once again enthroned in her eyes. There was an effulgence in her loveliness which almost awed him, yet she did that which during all their intercourse she had never done before. Calmly, fearlessly, and as of right, she put up her sweet lips and kissed him.