suddenly to find Cherry hunting for a book. She had dropped on one
knee, the better to reach a low shelf, and was wholly absorbed in
the volume she had chanced to open.

When she heard the door open she turned, and immediately became
very pale. She did not speak as Peter came to stand beside her.

"Cherry--" he said in a whisper, his face close to hers. Neither
spoke again for awhile. Cherry was breathing hard, Peter was
conscious only of a wild whirling of brain and senses.

They remained so, their eyes fixed, their breath coming as if they
had been running, for endless seconds.

"You remember the question you asked me this morning?" Peter said.
"Do you remember? Do you remember?"

Cherry, her cold fingers still holding the place in the book she
had been reading, went blindly to the fireplace.

"What?" she said, in the merest breath. "What?"

"Because," Peter said, following her, a sort of heady madness
making him only conscious of that need to hear from her own lips
that she knew, "because I didn't answer that question honestly!"

It mattered not what he said, or what he was trying to express;
both were enveloped in the flame of their new relationship;
surprise and terror were eclipsing even the strange joy of their
discovery.