She awoke with a start, naked and disoriented . . . and gaped at him, and flushed crimson! For a long moment she was speechless, and buried her head against his chest. A moment later came her muffled moan. "Ah-h! It was not a dream, after all. What are we to do?"
"In truth?" he replied, considering. "I never thought about it coming to this."
They touched, tentatively, fear and wonder indistinguishable from one another. There lovemaking was as much a response to impending loss as it was to their need for each other. Afterward, she lay in his arms and wept.
"I'm so ashamed," she said. "I've never cried in front of anyone before; not since I was a child. I don't understand why this is happening to me!"
He smiled ruefully at this. "I suppose this is `love's undoing,' that is often spoken of."
"Love!" she growled, and clung to him with a newfound, unashamed feeling of possessiveness. "It is not what I imagined it to be. It is more alike to pain!"
For this he could think of no apt reply, but together, for a time at least, they drifted off into untroubled sleep.
That afternoon, as Damond strolled through the walled garden within the House of Wilkin, he passed a couple sitting upon a stone bench. And then, a moment after he had passed them, something made him turn and regard the two of them.