He lay on a Madeira lounge-chair, with pillows at his back. Every bone in his face, every line scored by the graving-tools of conflict and pain, showed cruelly distinct in the morning light. At sight of her, he tried to speak; but the muscles of his throat rebelled: and he simply held out his arms. Then, in one rush, she came to him: and as he laid hands on her, drawing her down on to a spare corner of his chair, she leaned forward and buried her face in the soft flannel of his coat. Nothing but silence becomes the great moments of life; and for a long while he held her thus, without power or desire of speech. All his man's strength melted in him at the faint fragrance of her hair; at the exquisite yielding of her figure, as she lay palpitating against him; at the yet more exquisite assurance that the love he had gained was a thing beyond estimation, a thing indestructible as the soul itself. For her very surrender was quick with the vitality that was her crowning charm. And she, feeling the tremor that ran through him as he kissed the blue-veined hollow of her temple,--the only space available--exulted in the belief that love had triumphed over bloodless scruples once and for all. "Quita," he whispered at length, "what possessed you to face that nightmare of a journey alone?" "You possessed me." She made no attempt to lift her head. "But, my darling, you ought not to have come. You ought not to be here. You know that." "Yes. I know it. Are you . . angry, that I am here?" "Angry? My God! It's new life to me. Your voice, just the music of it, gets into my head like wine. Look up, lass. I love your hair, every wisp and thread of it. But I am waiting for something more." The appeal was irresistible; and she looked up, accordingly, setting her hands lightly on his shoulders. The change wrought in him by illness and mental struggle pierced her like a physical pang; and her eyes fell before the yearning in his, the revelation of chained-up forces, and emotions straining at the leash. Then, still keeping her lids closed, she tilted her head backward, her lips just parted; and again, as on that night of enchantment at Kajiar, they were swept beyond the boundaries of space and time; beyond the stumbling-blocks, the pitiful limitations of earth. But limitations are as indispensable to life on our bewildering planet as bread and meat. The wine of ecstasy can only be taken in small doses, at a price. Quita sat upright at last, on the spare corner of her husband's chair, flushed, smiling, and not a little tremulous. Stumbling-blocks and limitations loomed again on the horizon. But for the present she would have none of them. Eldred was not angry. He wanted her--supremely:--how supremely, his lips had just been telling her in language more primitive, more forcible than speech.