Neither spoke when it had ended. She turned aside and stood

motionless a moment, resting against the stair rail as though to

steady herself. Her small head was lowered.

He managed to say: "You will give me the next?"

"No."

"Then the next----"

"No," she said, not moving.

A young fellow came up eagerly, cocksure of her, but she shook her

head--and shook her head to all--and Berkley remained standing

beside her. And at last her reluctant head turned slowly, and,

slowly, her gaze searched his.

"Shall we rest?" he said.

"Yes. I am--tired."

Her dainty avalanche of skirts filled the stairs as she settled

there in silence; he at her feet, turned sideways so that he could

look up into the brooding, absent eyes.

And over them again--over the small space just then allotted them

in the world--was settling once more the intangible, indefinable

spell awakened by their first light contact. Through its silence

hurried their pulses; through its significance her dazed young eyes

looked out into a haze where nothing stirred except a phantom

heart, beating, beating the reveille. And the spell lay heavy on

them both.

"I shall bear your image always. You know it."

She seemed scarcely to have heard him.

"There is no reason in what I say. I know it. Yet--I am destined

never to forget you."

She made no sign.

"Ailsa Paige," he said mechanically.

And after a long while, slowly, she looked down at him where he sat

at her feet, his dark eyes fixed on space.




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