She checked herself, smiled at him; then her eyes grew dark and
thoughtful, and a deeper colour burned in her cheeks.
"I'll try to tell you," she said. "Last night, after I left you, I lay
thinking about--love. And the--the new knowledge of myself
disconcerted me.... There remained a vague sense of dismay
and--humiliation--" She bent her head over her folded hands, silent
until the deepening colour subsided.
Still with lowered eyes she went on, steadily enough: "My instinct was
to escape--I don't know exactly how to tell this to you, dear,--but
the impulse to escape possessed me--and I felt that I must rise from
the lower planes and free myself from a--a lesser passion--slip from
the menace of its control--become clean again of everything that is
not of the spirit.... Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"So I rose and knelt down and said my prayers.... And asked to be
instructed because of my inexperience with--with these new and
deep--emotions. And then I lay down, very tranquil again, leaving the
burden with God.... All concern left me,--and the restless sense of
shame. I turned my head on the pillow and looked out into the
moonlight.... And, gently, naturally, without any sense of effort, I
left my body where it lay in the moonlight, and--and found myself in
the garden. Mother was there. You, also, were there; and two men with
you."
His eyes never left her face; and now she looked up at him with a
ghost of a smile: "Mother spoke of the loveliness of the flowers. I heard her, but I was
listening to you. Then I followed you where you were driving the two
men from the grounds. I understood what had happened. After you went
into the house again my mother and I saw you watching by your window.
I was sorry that you were so deeply disturbed.
"Because what had occurred did not cause me any anxiety whatever."
"Do you mean," he said hoarsely, "that the probability of your name
being coupled with mine and dragged through the public mire does not
disconcert you?"
"No."
"Why not? Is it because your clairvoyance reassures you as to the
outcome of all this?"
"Dear," she said, gently, "I know no more of the outcome than you do.
I know nothing more concerning our future than do you--excepting,
only, that we shall journey toward it together, and through it to the
end, accomplishing the destiny which links us each to the other.... I
know no more than that."