to begin.
'Come for a little stroll then,' he urged. 'It's not late yet, Mary. Well not go far.'
She could not leave him! With a premonitory sadness rising in her throat at the very thought of her departure, she felt blindly that she must be with him a little longer. She wished to delay the sad reaction from this excitement and enchantment; she wanted his presence always, to soothe her and comfort her. The poignancy of her present feeling for him hurt her like a wound in her side and its potency drove from her mind the thought of her home, her father, every deterring thought that might have prevented her accompanying him.
'Come, Mary dear,' he pleaded. 'It's still early.'
'For a little way then,' she consented in a whispered tone. The path they took followed the winding bank of the Leven with the rippling river on one side and on the other meadows of dewy pasture land. A full moon, that shone like a burnished plate of beaten silver, hung high in the sky, amongst a silver dust of stars, and was bosomed in the mysterious depths of the dark water beneath.
At times thin pencils of misty cloud streaked this white nimbus that lay so far above and yet so deeply within the river, like ghostly fingers shielding from the eyes a luminance too brilliant to endure.
As they walked, silent in the beauty of the silvery radiance, the air, cool with the dew-drenched freshness of night and sweet with the scents of lush grass and wild mint, encompassed them softly and settled upon them like a caress.
Before them two large grey moths pursued each other along the pathway, fluttering fantastically among the tall sedges and rushes of the bank, silently circling and crossing, flitting, but always following each other, always together. Their wings shone in the white light like large sailing motes within a moonbeam and the whisper of their flight fell upon the quietude like the downward flutter of a falling leaf.
The river too, was almost silent, gurgling and sucking softly at its banks, and the low purling song of the stream became part of the stillness of the night.
They had walked some distance and now the fair-ground was marked only by a faint glare in the sky extinguished by the moon, and the brassy music by a weak whisper on the breeze obliterated by the stillness; yet Mary and Denis knew nothing of the music or the moon, and though unconsciously they absorbed the beauty around them they were aware only of each other. That she should be for the first time alone with Denis and isolated from the world filled Mary with a tremulous happiness, set her heart beating in a wild and joyous sweetness.
Denis, too, the sophisticated young man of the town, was overwhelmed by an emotion that was strange and new. The easy currents of conversational small talk which made him always the life and soul of a party, the blandishments that flowed naturally from his lips, were dried up at the source. He was silent as a mute at a funeral, and, he told himself, as dismal. He felt that his reputation was at stake, that he must make some remark, no matter how trivial. Yet while
he cursed himself inwardly for a dolt, a blunderer, a simpleton, imagining that he was estranging Mary by his dumb stupidity, his tongue still remained dry and his quick brain so flooded by his emotions that he could not speak.
Outwardly they both walked placidly and sedately, but inwardly there surged in each a tide of pent-up feelings, and because they did not speak this feeling grew more intense.
In Mary's side there came an actual pain. They were so close together that the sense of intimacy filled her with inexpressible yearning, an unfathomable longing which found its only ease in the firm clasp upon her arm that linked her pulsating body to his and soothed her like a divine balm.
At length they stopped suddenly, involuntarily, turned, and faced each other. Mary lifted her face to Denis. The small oval of her features in the pallor of the moonlight showed a spiritual translucency. He bent and kissed her. Her lips were soft and warm and dry and they offered themselves to his like an oblation. It was the first time she had kissed any man, and although she was perfectly innocent and entirely ignorant, yet the instincts of nature throbbed within her
and she pressed her lips close against his.
Denis was overwhelmed. His mild experience as a gallant had encompassed nothing like this, and, feeling as if he had received a rare and wonderful gift, without knowing what he did, he dropped spontaneously upon his knees beside Mary and, clasping his arms around her, pressed his face in homage against her dress. The smell of the rough worn serge of her skirt was fragrant to him; he felt her legs, so pathetically slender and immature, tremble slightly under his touch. Clasping her hand he drew her down beside him. Now he could see the little hollow in her neck and from it a tiny blue vein running down. As he took off her hat a ringlet of hair fell over her smoothly pale brow, and first he kissed that awkwardly, humbly, with a clumsiness which did him credit, before he laid his lips upon her eyes and closed them with his kisses.
Now they were in each other's arms, sheltered by rushes and bushes of broom, the soft grass plastic beneath them. The contact of their bodies gave them a delicious warmth so that there was no need of speech, and in silence they left the world, knowing and caring nothing but for each other. Her head lay back on his arm, and between her parted lips her teeth shone in the moonlight like small white seeds.
Her breath was like new milk. Again he saw in the arch of her neck the small vein threaded under the smooth skin, like a tiny rivulet through virgin snow, and caressingly he stroked it, gently tracing with his finger tips its lovely downward passage. How firm and round her breasts were, each like a smooth and perfect unplucked fruit enclosed within his palm for him to fondle! The pressure of his hand sent the hot colour into her face, and though her breath came faster, yet she suffered him. She felt these small virgin breasts, the consideration of which had never before invaded the realm of her consciousness, grow turgid, as if an ichor from her blood had filled them, and all her puny strength surged into them as though from her nipples drops might well forth to an invisible suckling.
Then her mind was dazzled, and, as she lay with closed eyes in his embrace, she forgot everything, knew nothing, ceased to be herself, and was his. Her spirit rushed to meet his swifter than a swallow's flight and together uniting, leaving their bodies upon the earth, they soared into the rarer air. Together they floated upwards as lightly as the two moths and as soundlessly as the river. No dimension contained them, no tie of earth restrained the ecstasy of their flight.
The lights in the fair-ground went out one by one; an old frog, its large, sad eyes jewelled in the moonlight, broke through the grasses beside them, then noiselessly departed; a dim white mist sheathed the radiance of the river like breath upon a mirror; then, as the lace veils of vapour loomed over the land, crepuscular shadows filled the hollows of the meadows and the earth grew faintly
colder as though its heat had been chilled by the rimed air. With the falling mist all sound was blotted out and the stillness became absolute until after a long time a trout jumped upstream and splashed heavily in its pool.
At the sound, Mary stirred slowly, and consciousness of the world
half returning, she whispered softly:
'Denis, I love you. Dear, dear Denis! But it's late, very late! We must go.'
She lifted her head heavily, moved her drugged limbs slowly, then, like a flash, the recollection of her father, her home, her position here, invaded her mind. She started up, terrified, horrified with herself.
'Oh! What have I done? My father! What will become of us?' she cried. 'I'm mad to be here like this.'
Denis stood up.
'No harm will come to you, Mary,' he said, as he essayed to soothe her. 'I love you! I will take care of you.'
'Let me go then,' she replied, while tears ran down her pale cheeks. 'Oh! I must be back before he gets in or I’ll be shut out all night. I'd have no home!'
'Don't cry, dear Mary,' he entreated; 'it hurts me to see you cry. It's not so very late not eleven o'clock yet! Besides, I am responsible for everything; all the blame is mine.'
'No! No!' she cried. 'It's all my fault, Denis. I should never have come. I disobeyed my father. I'll be the one to suffer.'
Denis placed his arm around her trembling form and, looking again into her eyes, said firmly:
'You will not suffer, Mary! Before we go I want you to understand one thing. I love you. I love you above everything. I am going to marry you.'
'Yes, yes,' she sobbed. 'Only let me get home. I must. My father will kill me! If he's not late to-night something terrible will happen to me to us both.' She started off at a run up the path, slipping and stumbling in her anxiety to make haste, whilst he followed, trying to console and comfort her, uttering words of the most endearing
