“Why do you think that?” she asked, with a sudden glance into his eyes. “Because the death is often an echo of the life, a storm-cry or a peaceful noise of flutes.” The dusk had deepened rapidly; the rain still rushed upon the earth. The lightning had grown fitful in the west with a sullen roar of distant thunder. The wind had passed and was gone, as though some grim company of the damned had swept gibbering athwart the sky. There was no sound now save the rattle of the rain upon the laurels. The dusk thickened to an eerie gloom. In the window-seat the man and the girl crouched like two silent children. Joan’s face was white as death in the dark; her eyes shone with a peculiar brilliancy; now and again there was a faint glimmer of light upon her hair. “You cannot go yet,” she said. “The sky may clear soon.” There was the sound of a door opening stealthily. Gabriel, glancing over his shoulder, saw a white cap and a gray face peering through the dusk. Then there came a mumbled excuse and the door closed again. Mrs. Primmer had seen the two outlined together against the window. They were too perilously near, and in the dark also, to satisfy the lady’s conscience. She had drawn back with a hard smile and sundry feminine cogitations in her heart. “The woman moves like a cat,” said Joan, leaning her head against the panelling. “Mrs. Primmer?” “Yes.” He was silent a moment with a dark race of thought through his mind. The girl seemed absolutely unconscious of all evil, trustful as a child. “I must go now,” he said. “In this rain?” “Yes. The sky is clearing. I will go to the door and look out.” He spoke in a monotonous tone that hurt the girl’s heart for the moment; she did not realize the moral force of those few words. They passed through the darkened hall together and stood in the porch. The steady rattle of the shower was ceasing; it lessened minute by minute; soon there was nothing but the fall of the rain from the trees. A delicious fragrance breathed in the night air. “I will take my chance,” said the man. Joan stepped out with him into the drive. “As far as the gate,” she said, half appealingly. They passed down the drive into the dense umbrage of the yews and cypresses. Overhead a silvery film of clouds covered the sky; here and there a star flickered through. The west was still black as the mouth of a mighty cavern. At the gate they stood a moment as though loath to part. The girl’s eyes looked very big and luminous in the dusk; her hair was a dark wreath about her face. She gave him one of the red wind-flowers from her bosom. “Good-night,” she said. Her voice was very wistful, and she stood close to the man as he held the iron gate open with one hand. “I shall see you again soon?” she asked. A sudden hunger for her lips seized him, but he withheld the desire and drew back slowly from under the overhanging trees. “Good-night,” he said to her. “Good-night.”