He laughed. "I won't hear a word against Wortheton if it keeps your memory green," he returned. "It fossilises memory," she answered. "Every little event that has ever befallen is stamped on my mind in indelible colours--drab colours for the unpleasant event, and brighter tints for the pleasant in comparison with their different degrees of agreeableness." "And this event?" he questioned. "These stolen moments? In what colour is this event painted?" "I'll tell you that when we meet again--perhaps," she answered. "Oh please!" he persisted. "I want to know now." Prudence laughed softly. He detected a slight nervousness in her mirth, a quality of shyness that gratified his eager curiosity, conveying as it did that the girl was not insensible of his influence and his unspoken homage. "You see," she said, and blushed warmly in the darkness as she leaned down towards him, "it is all a confusion of splashes of moonlight and brighter splashes of sunshine. There aren't any colours on the canvas at all." "I'm contented with that," he said... "a luminous impression! Your fancy pleases me. My fancy in connexion with you will picture always a rose-bowered window set in a grey stone wall--just a frame for you, with your moonlit hair and eyes like beautiful stars. Always I shall see you like that--inaccessible, while I stand below and gaze upward." This extravagance led to further admissions. He managed very clearly to convey to his silent listener that his feeling for her was of quite an unusual quality, that he cared immensely, that he had no intention of letting her drop out of his life. He wanted to see more of her and was fully determined to do so. He made her realise that unless she disclaimed a reciprocal liking he intended taking her silence for acquiescence. He spoke so rapidly, and with so much concentrated passion in his lowered tones, that Prudence only vaguely comprehended all that his eager words attempted to convey. She was apprehensive of discovery, and, rendered doubly nervous by this clandestine love-making and the fear of interruption, could find no words in which to reply. She wanted time to think: the whole situation flurried her; and her heart was beating with a rapidity that made articulation difficult. "Oh!" she said... "Oh! I didn't know... I didn't understand..." "Well, you understand now," he answered. "Prudence, give me one word-- one kind word to carry away with me... dear!" There followed a pause, during which her face showed dimly above him, with eyes shadowed darkly in the wan light. She leaned towards him. "Ssh! Good-bye--dear!" she called back softly. And the next thing he realised, even as her words floated faintly down to his eager ears, was that he was standing alone in the darkness, gazing up at the place where she had stood and from whence she had vanished with startling and unaccountable suddenness.