Anna was asleep in the upper bed, lying flat on her back, with her lovely hair falling loosely about her flushed little face.  The little cabin bedroom was as sweet as the surrounding woodland, wide-open windows admitted the fragrant coolness of the spring night.  There was no moon, but the sky that arched high above the little valley was thickly spattered with stars.  Richie’s cat, a shadow among paler shadows, leaped swiftly over the new grass.  Julia got the milky odour of buttercups, the breath of the little Persian lilac that flanked one end of the porch.

Her heart was beating thickly and excitedly, she did not want to think why.  Through her brain swept a confusion of thoughts, thoughts disconnected and chaotic.  She tried to remember just what words on her part—­on Richard’s—­had led to that strange mad moment of revelation, but the memory of the moment itself overleaped all those preceding it.  Julia knelt, her elbows on the window sill, and felt merely that she never wanted to move again.  She wanted just to kneel here, hugging to her heart the thrilling emotion of the moment, realizing afresh that life was not dead in her; youth and love were not dead in her; she could still tremble and laugh and cry in the exquisite joy of being beloved.

And it was Richie, so weak in body, so powerful in spirit; so humble in little things, so bold and sure in the things that are great; not rich in money, but rich in wisdom and goodness; Richie, who knew all her pitiful history now, and had long suspected it, who loved her!  Julia knew even now that it was an ill-fated love; she knew that deep under this first strangely thrilling current of pride and joy ran the cold waters of renunciation.  But cool reason had little to do with this mood; she was as mad as any girl whose senses are suddenly, blindly, set free by a lover’s first kiss.

After a while she began mechanically to undress, brushed her hair, moved about softly in the uncertain candlelight.  And as she did so she became more and more unable to resist the temptation to say “Good-night” to Richie again.  Neither brain nor heart was deeply involved in this desire, but some influence, stronger than either, urged her irresistibly toward its fulfilment.

She would not do it, of course!  Not that there was harm in it; what possible harm could there be in her putting her head into the sitting-room and simply saying “Good-night?” Still, she would not do it.

A glance at herself in the dimly lighted mirror set her pulses to leaping again.  Surely candlelight had never fallen on a more exquisite face, framed in so shining and soft an aureole of bright hair.  The long loose braid fell over her shoulder, a fine ruffle of thin linen lay at the round firm base of her throat.  She was still young—­still beautiful—–­

Anna stirred, sighed in her sleep.  And instantly Julia had extinguished the candle, and was bending tenderly over the child.