Her embarrassment melted away before the look he bent upon her, as a morning mist before the sun. She lifted her eyes to his--those honest eyes that he could read like a book--and her lips parted in an effort to speak. The next instant, before a word was said, he had her in his arms, and her mouth met his under the red moustache in a long, and close, and breathless kiss; and both of them knew that they were to part no more till their lives' end. While that brief ceremony of betrothal lasted, they might have been in the black grotto where they kissed each other first, so oblivious were they of their surroundings; but they took in presently the meaning of certain sounds in the gallery on the other side of the curtain, and resumed their normal attitudes. "Come and sit down," said Mr. Yelverton, drawing her into the room. "Come and let's have a talk." And he set her down on the velvet ottoman and took a seat beside her--leaning forward with an arm on his knee to barricade her from an invasion of the public as far as possible. His thoughts turned, naturally enough, to their late very important interview in the caves. "We will go back there," he said, expressing his desire frankly. "When we are married, Elizabeth, we will go to your old home again together, before we set out on longer travels, and you and I will have a picnic to the caves all alone by ourselves, in that little buggy that we drove the other day. Shall we?" "We might tumble into one of those terrible black holes," she replied, "if we went there again." "True--we might. And when we are married we must not run any unnecessary risks. We will live together as long as we possibly can, Elizabeth." She had drawn off her right glove, and now slipped her hand into his. He grasped it fervently, and kneaded it like a lump of stiff dough (excuse the homely simile, dear reader--it has the merit of appropriateness, which is more than you can say for the lilies and jewellery) between his two strong palms. How he did long for that dark cave!--for any nook or corner that would have hidden him and her from sight for the next half hour. "Why couldn't you have told me a week ago?" he demanded, with a thrill in his deep voice. "You must have known you would take me then, or you would not have come to me like this to-day. Why didn't you give yourself to me at first? Then we should have been together all this time--all these precious days that we have wasted--and we should have been by the sea at this moment, sitting under those big rocks, or wandering away into the bush, where nobody could interfere with us."