Eppie sat on a low garden bench in the garden’s most hidden corner. With the fresh keenness of sight he could see the clustering white roses on the wall behind her, see against them the darkness of her hair, the whiter whiteness of her dress, as she sat there with head a little bent, looking down, the long white shawl folded about her. It was no longer the Eppie of the past, not even the Eppie of the present: the present was only that long pause. It was the future that waited there, silent, motionless, almost as if asleep; waited for the word and touch that would reveal it. She had not heard his light step, and it seemed to be in the very stillness of his pause that the sense of his presence came to her. Raising her head she looked round at him. He could only see the narrow oval of her face, but he felt her look; it seized him, compelling as the fragrance had been--compelling but not gentle. He felt it like firm hands upon him while he walked on slowly toward her, and not until he was near her, not until he had sat down beside her, did he see as well as feel her fixed and hostile gaze. All swathed and infolded as she was, impalpable and unsubstantial in the darkness, her warm and breathing loveliness was like the aroma of a midnight flower. She was so beautiful sitting there, a blossoming of the darkness, that her beauty seemed aware of itself and of its appeal; and it was as if her soul, gazing at him, dominated the appeal; menaced him should he yield to it; yet loved, ah, loved him with a love the greater for the courage, the will, that could discipline it into this set, stern stillness. Yes, here was the future, and what was he to do with it? or, rather, what was it to do with him? He was at her mercy. He had leaned near her, his hand on the bench, to look into her eyes, and in a shaken, supplicating voice he said, “Eppie, Eppie, what do you want?” Without change, looking deeply at him, she answered, “You.” That crashed through him. He was lost, drowned, in the mere sense of beauty--the beauty of the courage that could so speak and so hold him at the point of a sword heroically drawn. And with the word the future seized him. He hid his face upon her shoulder and his arms went round her. Her breast heaved. For a moment she sat as if stricken with astonishment. Then, but with sternness, as of a just and angry mother, she clasped him, holding him closely but untenderly. “I did not mean this,” she said. “No; but you _are_ it,” Gavan murmured. She held him in the stern, untender clasp, her head drawn back from him, while, slowly, seeking her words over the tumult she subdued, she said: “It’s _you_ I want--not your unwilling longing, not your unwilling love. I want you so that I can be really myself; I want you so that you can be really yourself.” He strained her to him, hiding his face on her breast. “Can’t you live? Can’t you be--if I help you?” she asked him.