She hardly knew why, after that last farewell to Martin, she had
run so swiftly up the path, and why she had flashed into the
house, and closed the door with such noiseless haste. There was
nothing to run for! But it was as if she feared that the joy
within her might escape into the moonlight night that was so
perfumed with lilacs and the scent of wet woods. In this new
happiness of hers a fear was already mingled, a sweet fear, truly,
and a delicious fear, but she had never feared anything before in
her life. She was afraid now that it was all too wonderful to be
true, that she would awaken in the morning to find it only a
dream, that she would somehow fall short of Martin's ideal--
somehow fail him--somehow turn all this magic of moonshine and
kisses into ashes and heartbreak.

She was a miser with her treasure, already; she wanted to fly with
it, and to hide it away, and to test its reality in secret, alone.
She had come running in from the wonderland down by the gate, just
for this, just to prove to herself that it would not vanish in the
commonplaceness of the shabby hall, would not disappear before the
everyday contact of everyday things.

There was moonlight here, too, falling in clear squares on the
stairway landing, white and mysterious and bewitching, but on the
other side of the hall was wholesome, cheerful lamplight creeping
in a warm streak under the sitting-room door.

Dad was in the sitting room, with the girls. The doctor's house
was full of girls. Anne, his niece, was twenty-four; Alix,
Cherry's sister, three years younger--how staid and unmarried and