Their glances lingered, and he read in her a wild unhappiness and a suggestion of reckless daring that stirred his heart to he knew not what tempestuous emotions. He found in that look a license for his dreams, and made her the guardian of his conscience. He had no wish to be more honourable than she, and this surrender was attended by an ecstasy that derived its final sweetness from a sense of transgression. When the carriage came round, he handed Mrs. Parr in, and then hesitated. "We ought to walk home such a night as this, Miss Wycliffe," he suggested. Mrs. Parr leaned forward and laughed lightly with appreciation. "Felicity, dear," she said, "if you're going to walk, do draw up your hood, or you'll catch cold." Leigh's heart grew warm with gratitude at this friendly interposition, and to his surprise even Parr himself seemed not indifferent to his cause. "Yes," he added, pulling at his cigar till it glowed redly, "this is the kind of weather when one catches cold easily. The worst cold I ever caught was during one of these January thaws." With this advice they drove away, pleased with their innocent cooperation. Felicity, laughing at their warning, nevertheless accepted the suggestion. The long Shaker cloak gave a demure and Puritanical effect to her figure as her head disappeared beneath the hood, an effect of outline merely, for the richness of its crimson hue suggested other associations. For some time they walked in comparative silence through the park, pausing for a moment on the stone arch that spanned the stream to note the glint of the moon on the swirling water, and even when they found themselves at last in Birdseye Avenue, their talk was all of the night and the sorcery of its effects, veiling and again unconsciously betraying the nature of their inward thoughts. A realisation of the fact that his opportunity was slipping by moved Leigh to desperation. Yet an opportunity for what? Try as he might, he could never understand how she had come to marry Emmet; her practical repudiation of the act could not undo it. What was he to hope for from this cruel and beautiful woman? He was indifferent to the fact that for some time he had not spoken. "What are you thinking of?" she asked, turning upon him with a hint of challenge. "Has the moonlight bewitched you, Mr. Leigh?" "Not the moonlight," he answered shortly, "though I am bewitched." She regarded him with an air of inquiry, even of invitation. Was it possible that she failed to know what might result? Did she hunger for further evidences of her power? "Don't look at me like that," he went on, "if you wish me to remember that you once forbade me to love you. Don't I know how hopeless my love is? Your eyes have come between me and my work day and night to invite me to take what you can never give, and what I believe you would not give if you could. Is n't it enough that you have been cruel to one man?"