smothered the hint before he realised that it had brushed the skirts of
warning.

And then he saw her. She stood there waiting in a little clear space of
shining snow, dressed all in white, part of the moonlight and the
glistening background, her slender figure just discernible.

"I waited, for I knew you would come," the silvery little voice of windy
beauty floated down to him. "You _had_ to come."

"I'm ready," he answered, "I knew it too."

The world of Nature caught him to its heart in those few words--the
wonder and the glory of the night and snow. Life leaped within him. The
passion of his pagan soul exulted, rose in joy, flowed out to her. He
neither reflected nor considered, but let himself go like the veriest
schoolboy in the wildness of first love.

"Give me your hand," he cried, "I'm coming ...!"

"A little farther on, a little higher," came her delicious answer. "Here
it is too near the village--and the church."

And the words seemed wholly right and natural; he did not dream of
questioning them; he understood that, with this little touch of
civilisation in sight, the familiarity he suggested was impossible. Once
out upon the open mountains, 'mid the freedom of huge slopes and
towering peaks, the stars and moon to witness and the wilderness of snow
to watch, they could taste an innocence of happy intercourse free from
the dead conventions that imprison literal minds.