Her sensitive lips parted, trembled--and closed again.

"_Tara!_" he repeated, dizzily incredulous, where a moment earlier he had been arrogantly certain. "_Is_ it true ... what your eyes are telling me? Can you forgive ... my madness out there? Half across the world you called to me; and I've come home to _you_ ... with every atom of me ... I'm loving you; and I'm still ... bracelet-bound...."

This time her lips trembled into a smile. "And it's not one of the Prayer-book affinities!" she reminded him, a gleam of that other Tara in her eyes.

"No, thank G.o.d--it's not! But you haven't answered me, you know...."

"Roy, what a story! When you know I really said it first!" Her eyes were saying it again now; and he, bereft of words, mutely held out his arms.

If she paused an instant, it was because she felt even dizzier than he.

But the power of his longing drew her like a physical force--and, as his lips claimed hers, the terror of love and its truth caught her and swept her from known sh.o.r.es into uncharted seas....

This was a Roy she scarcely knew. But her heart knew; every pulse of her awakened womanhood knew....

Presently it became possible to think. Very gently she pushed him back a little.

"O-oh--I never knew ... you were ... like _that_! And you've crushed my poor sweet-peas to smithereens! Now--behave! Let me _look_ at you ...

properly, and see what India's done to you. Give me a chance!"

He gave her a chance, still keeping hold of her--to make sure she was real.

"High-Tower Princess, are we truly US? Or is it a 'bewitchery'?" he asked, only half in joke. "Will you go turning into a b.u.t.terfly presently----?"

"Promise I won't!" Her low laugh was not quite steady. "We're US--truly.

And we've got to Farthest-End, where your dreams come true. D'you remember--I always said they couldn't. They were too crazy. So I don't deserve----"

"It's _I_ that don't deserve," he broke out with sudden pa.s.sion. "And to find you under our very own tree! Have you forgotten--that day? Of course _you_ went to the 'tipmost top; and I didn't. It's queer--isn't it?--how _bits_ of life get printed so sharply on your brain; and great s.p.a.ces, on either side, utterly blotted out. That day's one of my bits.

Is it so clear--to you?"

"To _me_----?" She could scarcely believe he did not know....

Unashamedly, she wanted him to know. But part of him was strange to her--thrillingly strange: which made things not quite so simple.

"Roy," she went on, after a luminous pause, twisting the top b.u.t.ton of his coat. "I'm going to tell you a secret. A big one. For me that Day was ... the beginning of everything.--Hush--listen!"--Her fingers just touched his lips. "I'm feeling--rather shy. And if you don't keep quiet, I can't tell. Of course I always ... loved you, next to Atholl. But after that ... after the fight, I simply ... adored you. And ... and ...

it's never left off since...."

"Tara! My loveliest!" he cried, between ecstasy and dismay; and gathering her close again, he kissed her softly, repeatedly, murmuring broken endearments. "And there was _I_...!"

"Yes. There were you ... with your poems and Aunt Lila and your dreams about India--always with your head among the stars..."

"In plain English, a spoilt boy--as you once told me--wrapped up in myself."

"No, you weren't. I won't _have_ it!" she contradicted him in her old imperious way. "You were wrapped up in all kinds of wonderful things. So you just ... didn't see me. You looked clean over my head. Of course it often made me unhappy. But--it made me love you more. That's the way we women are. It's not the men who run after us; it's the other kind...! I expect you looked clean over poor Aruna's head. And if I asked her, privately, she'd confess that was partly why ... and the other girl too ... if ..."

"Darling--_don't_!" he pleaded. "I'm ashamed, beyond words. I'll tell you every atom of it truthfully ... my Tara. But this is _our_ moment. I want more--about you.--Sit. It's full early. Then we'll go in (of course you're coming to breakfast) and give Dad the surprise of his life....

Bother your old hat! It gets in the way. And I want to see your hair."

With a shyness new to him--and to Tara, poignantly dear--he drew out her pins; discarded the offending hat, and took her head between his hands, lightly caressing the thick coils that shaded from true gold to warm delicate tones of brown.

Then he set her on the mossy seat near the trunk; and flung himself down before her in the old way, propped on his elbows--rapt, lost in love; divinely without self-consciousness.

"I'm _not_ looking over your head now," he said, his eyes deep in hers:--deep and deeper, till the wild-rose flush invaded the delicate hollows of her temples; and leaning forward she laid a hand across those too eloquent eyes.

"Don't blind me altogether--darling. When people have been shut away from the sun a long time----"

"But, Tara--why _were_ you...?" He removed the hand and kept hold of it.

"I begged you to come. I wanted you. Why _did_ you...?"

She shook her head, smiling half wistfully. "That's a bit of my old Roy!

But you're man enough to know--now, without telling. And I was woman enough to know--then. At least, by instinct, I knew...."

"Then it wasn't because ... because--I'm half ... Rajput?"

"_Roy!_" But for all her surprise and reproach, intuition told him the idea was not altogether new to her. "What made you think--of _that_?"

"Well--because it partly ... broke things off--out there. That startled me. And when Dad's miracle of a picture woke me up with a vengeance ...

it terrified me. I began wondering.... Beloved, are you _quite_ sure about Aunt Helen ... Sir James...?"

She paused--a mere breathing-s.p.a.ce; her free hand caressed his hair.

(This time, he did not shift his head.) "I'm utterly sure about Mother.

You see ... she knows ... we've talked about it. We're like sisters, almost. As for Father ... well, we're less intimate. I did fancy he seemed the wee-est bit relieved when ... your news came...." The pain in his eyes checked her. "My blessed one, I won't have you _daring_ to worry about it. I'm feeling simply beyond myself with happiness and pride. Mother will be overjoyed. She realises ... a _little_ ... what I've been through. Of course--in our talks, she has told me frankly what tragedies often come from mixing such 'mighty opposites.' But she said all of you were quite exceptional. And she knows about such things. And _she's_ the point. She can always square Father if--there's any need. So just be quiet--inside!"

"But ... that day," he persisted, Roy-like, "_you_ didn't think of it----?"

"Faithfully, I didn't. I only felt your heart was too full up with Aunt Lila and India to have room enough for me. And I wanted _all_ the room--or nothing. Vaguely, I knew it was _her_ dream. But my wicked pride insisted it should be _your_ dream. It wasn't till long after, that Mother told me how--from the very first--Aunt Lila had planned and prayed, because she knew marriage might be your one big difficulty; and she could only speak of it to Mummy. It was their great link; the idea behind everything--the lessons and all. So you see, all the time, she was sort of creating me ... for you. And the bitter disappointment it must have been to her! If I'd had a glimmering ... of all that--I don't believe I could have held out against you----"

"Then I wish to heaven you'd had a glimmering--because of her and because of _us_. Look at all the good years we've wasted----"

"We've not--we've _not_!" she protested vehemently. "If it had happened then, it wouldn't have come within miles--of this. You simply hadn't it _in_ you, Roy, to give me ... all I can feel you giving me now. As for me--well, that's for you to find out! Of course, the minute I'd done it, I was miserable: furious with myself. For I couldn't stop ... loving you. My heart had no shame, in spite of my important pride. Only ...

after _she_ went--and Mother told me all--something in me seemed to know her free spirit would be near you--and bring you back to me ... somehow: _till_ ... your news came. And--_look_! The Bracelet! I hesitated a long time. If you hadn't been engaged, I'm not sure if I would have ventured.

But I did--and you're here. It's all been her doing, Roy, first and last. Don't let's spoil any of it with regrets."

He could only bow his head upon her hand in mute adoration. The courage, the crystal-clear wisdom of her--his eager Tara, who could never wait five minutes for the particular sweet or the particular tale she craved.

Yet she had waited five years for him--and counted it a little thing. Of a truth his mother had builded better than she knew.

"You see," Tara added softly. "There wouldn't have been ... the deeps.

And it takes the deeps to make you realise the heights----"

Lost in one another--in the wonder of mutual self-revealing--they were lost, no less, to impertinent trivialities of place and time; till the very trivial pang of hunger reminded Roy that he had been wandering for hours without food.

"Tara--it's a come down--but I'm fairly starving!" he cried suddenly--and consulted his watch. "Nine o'clock. The wretch I am! Dad's final remark was, 'Sure as a gun, you'll be late for breakfast.' And it seemed impossible. But sure as guns we _will_ be! Put on the precious hat. We must jolly well run for it."

And taking hands, like a pair of children, they ran....

CHAPTER THE LAST.