Mary Virginia tilted her head back, adorably.

“It was very, very noble of you to mind me—­under the circumstances,” she conceded, graciously.

“Believe me, it was,” agreed Laurence.  “I didn’t know it, of course, but even at that tender age my fate was upon me, for I liked to mind you.  Even the bawling didn’t daunt me, and I adored you when you resembled a squab.  Yes, I was in love with you then.  I’m in love with you now.  My girl, my own girl, I’ll go out of this world and into the next one loving you.”

“Then why,” she asked reproachfully, “haven’t you said so?”

“Why haven’t I said what?”

“Why, you know.  That you—­loved me, Laurence.”  Her rich voice had sunk to a whisper.

“Good Lord, haven’t I been saying it?”

“No, you haven’t!  You’ve been merely asking me to marry you.  But you haven’t said a word about loving me, until this very minute!”

“But you must know perfectly well that I’m crazy about you, Mary Virginia!” said the boy, and his voice trembled with bewilderment as well as passion.  “How in heaven’s name could I help being crazy about you?  Why, from the beginning of things, there’s never been anybody else, but just you.  I never even pretended to care for anybody else.  No, there’s nobody but you.  Not for me.  You’re everything and all, where I’m concerned.  And—­please, please look up, beautiful, and tell me the truth:  look at me, Mary Virginia!”

The white-clad figure moved a hair’s breadth nearer; the uplifted lovely face was very close.

“Do I really mean that to you, Laurence?  All that, really and truly?” she asked, wistfully.

“Yes!  And more.  And more!”

“I’ll be the unhappiest girl in the world:  I’ll be the most miserable woman alive—­if you ever change your mind, Laurence,” said she.

There was a quivering pause.  Then: 

“You care?” asked the boy, almost breathlessly.  “Mary Virginia, you care?” He laid his hands upon her shoulders and bent to search the alluring face.

“Laurence!” said Mary Virginia, with a tremulous, half-tearful laugh, “Laurence, it’s taken this one short winter to teach me, too.  And—­you were mistaken, utterly mistaken about those symptoms of mine.  It wasn’t tummy, Laurence.  And it wasn’t temper.  I think—­I am sure—­that what I was trying so hard to squall to you in my cradle was—­that I cared, Laurence.”

The young man’s arms closed about her, and I saw the young mouths meet.  I saw more than that:  I saw other figures steal out into the moonlight and stand thus entwined, and one was the ghost of what once was I. That other, lost Armand De Rance, looked at me wistfully with his clear eyes; and I was very, very sorry for him, as one may be poignantly sorry for the innocent, beautiful dead.  My hand tightened on my beads, and the feel of my cassock upon me, as a uniform, steadied and sustained me.