"Darker grow
The borders of the dark!
Through the branches glow,
From the roof above,
Star and diamond-sparks
Light for love."


Scarcely had the last sounds floated away from the hearing of my
own ears, when I heard instead a low delicious laugh near me. It
was not the laugh of one who would not be heard, but the laugh of
one who has just received something long and patiently desired--a
laugh that ends in a low musical moan. I started, and, turning
sideways, saw a dim white figure seated beside an intertwining
thicket of smaller trees and underwood.

"It is my white lady!" I said, and flung myself on the ground
beside her; striving, through the gathering darkness, to get a
glimpse of the form which had broken its marble prison at my
call.

"It is your white lady!" said the sweetest voice, in reply,
sending a thrill of speechless delight through a heart which all
the love-charms of the preceding day and evening had been
tempering for this culminating hour. Yet, if I would have
confessed it, there was something either in the sound of the
voice, although it seemed sweetness itself, or else in this
yielding which awaited no gradation of gentle approaches, that
did not vibrate harmoniously with the beat of my inward music.
And likewise, when, taking her hand in mine, I drew closer to